Arc 4 | Last Resort (12) |
LAST RESORT
Part 12
1:46 AM
5 Hours Until Dawn
3 Delvers Remaining…
So, they chose Henry. Figures.Let’s hope they made the right choice, I thought.
Henry smiled, slow and easy, like a man unwrapping a present. “Thank you,” Henry said. “And since you chose me, I’ll be kind in return. Real kind. I’ll give you seven minutes to run. To hide. To do whatever. Just make sure I don’t find you.”
He leaned forward.
“Tick tock, darlings.”
Wendy grabbed the candlestick without looking. Roy barreled after her. Jared, the stubborn idiot, locked eyes with Henry for one long, stupid second—then snatched a steak knife from the table and ran, too. Their footsteps slapped the tile with a messy, panicked retreat.
The archetypes didn’t move. Didn’t blink. They just watched the door swing shut behind the delvers like a pack of dogs watching wounded meat limp away.
“You did that on purpose,” Luke said accusingly. “You wanted them for yourself. You stacked the deck, and you knew they’d pick you.”
Henry’s face didn’t change. Not even a little twitch. “That is a baseless accusation, Luke, and I will not stand for that. It is not my intention to deceive you—any of you.”
Huh. That’s interesting, I thought. The Duke was lying. I reckoned since he captured all three delvers, it was his hunt. He just took out the competition.
Luke bristled. “Bullshit. You just want all the kills to yourselves. What? Not in a sharing mood, fang? Typical for a vamp—”
“Hey!” Alan barked. “Mind your manners, boy. He’s our neighbor, remember? Besides, he’s got a point. If we all piled on, this would be over before it even got fun.” He smiled then. “And we know bloodsuckers like to play with their food until it’s boring.”
“Careful, Alan…” Henry’s eyes glinted.
“But, Al, this is supposed to be our opening night!” Luke insisted. “Make our mark in this dungeon. First real hunt. First real blood!”
“This is just one of many scenarios, Luke,” I reassured him. “There will be plenty more to wet your…bloodlust. Don’t worry.”
Luke flinched upon hearing my voice. He bowed his head like a scolded child. “I’m sorry that I shouted, lord dungeon. I’m just excited about tonight, you know? I thought my brothers and I would finally get to hunt and show off our skills.” He glared at Henry. “But I’m mistaken.”
Henry took his time stepping closer to Luke, looming. “Tell you what,” he started. “The manor’s mine. If they make it out to the woods, they’re fair game. Yours. Anyone’s.”
Jessica piped up. “Even me?”
Henry waved a lazy hand. “Knock yourself out.”
She clapped her hands together, giggling like a maniac. “Goliath and I can cover the road! Maybe herd ’em into the old cabin. Have some fun there than this old stuffy place. No offense, Duke, but your manor looks like shit.”
Henry whipped his head around. “But you picked half the decorations.”
“I think you’re forgetting that I’m not human? You shouldn’t have listened to a demon. We kind of ruin things.”
Goliath nodded solemnly like that explained everything.
“Whatever floats your boat, my dear,” Henry said, shaking his head. “What say you, Alan?”
“I’m game for that,” Alan said, shooting another stern gaze at Luke. The kind of look older brothers gave right before they beat your ass. “Right, Luke?”
Luke muttered something ugly under his breath and stomped toward the side door. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll be by the woods if you need me.”
Alan sighed. “What about you, Garth? You good with this plan?”
Garth merely shrugged and adjusted his blue baseball cap. “Uh-huh.”
A man of few words, I thought, chuckling. For the past six weeks, I’ve only heard Garth speak maybe less than twenty times? And those were barely one or two sentences each. And Garth never left the Sawyer farm without a baseball cap on. His room at the farm did have a lot of hats. Almost like it was a second limb.
“Where are the delvers now?” Jessica bounced on her heels.
I smiled. “I can tell you, but you’re not the one hunting.”
“Urgh. Lame.”
Henry tilted his head, listening. A small smile crept across his face. “The kitchens. They found the back door.” Another pause. His smile got wider. Toothier. “And they just found out it’s locked. Bolted.”
Jessica pouted. “Aw, poor little lambs.”
“Remember,” Henry said, smoothing his jacket and adjusting his cufflinks, “don’t ruin them too badly. I still need to feed. Blood’s only good for five minutes after their death.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll leave you a sippy cup,” Alan said, laughing.
Henry arched an eyebrow. “Think I can’t handle it?”
“Buddy, you got an expensive suit on. It’d be a shame to get it dirty and crumpled. Maybe you should leave the dirty work for us lowly folks.”
“Nice try, Alan. Them’s the rules. They chose me. See you out there,” Henry said.
“No, no. We don’t want to get your manicure ruined. Or, god forbid, your pretty hair.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Door. Out.”
Alan laughed harder and clapped him on the back hard enough to make Henry sway. “Tell the dogs to piss outside, right?”
Garth tilted his baseball cap with a silent goodbye and followed his brothers out the door.
Once the Sawyers were out of sight, Jessica clicked her tongue. “Satan’s balls, they’re uncouth. Hey, do you all think Garth is single?”
“Jessica,” Henry snapped the demon out of her thoughts. “Don’t we have a job to do?”
“Oh. Right. Sorry, Duke. Lord Dungeon. How long has it been?”
“Two minutes,” I said. Probably less. “I should probably check on how they’re doing.”
“Wait! Let me take a guess!” Jessica raised her hand. “Screaming. Shouting. Arguing. Crying. Desperation. Looks about right?”
I took a peek into the kitchen. “Uh, most of it, yeah.”
And they were doing most of that.
When I opened my many-eyes into the kitchen, I saw the delvers frantically pacing across the room, still desperate to get out.
“We are gonna fucking die here!” Roy shouted, slamming his palm hard on the wood.
“Roy! You’re not helping!” Wendy said sternly. “Find something that opens this window.” Wendy had been yanking on the windows to no avail.
“We should hide,” Roy said. “We should get as far from the dining room as possible. This building’s huge. There should be a lot of places to hide, right?”
“But we can’t hide forever. He’ll eventually find us. We don’t even know how long they are keeping us in here.”
“I don’t hear them coming,” Jared said from the door. “They’re still in there.”
Wendy tried the window by the kitchen sink one more time. It did not move an inch. “This is bullshit!”
“We’re trapped,” Jared said. “He locked us in. Why wouldn’t he? This is his house.”
“Not. Helping,” Wendy hissed.
Wendy looked around, heart hammering. She wiped the sweat from her face with a trembling hand. There was a big block of knives magnetically fixed on the wall. She pulled the meat cleaver and tested the blade with her thumb. Sharp.
“Get armed,” she said. “Grab anything that’ll stab, bash, or slice.”
Jared opened his arms. “So what? We fight them? Just the three of us?”
“He’s the only one hunting us,” Wendy said.
“Or so he claims.”
Roy snorted but yanked something from inside an oven, a large three-pointed rotisserie skewer. Jared grabbed another knife, a much bigger blade than the steak knife he grabbed from the dining hall, a bread knife with a serrated edge.
“What are you gonna do with that? Slice a bread?” Roy asked. “Jesus, kid. Here.” He handed Jared a meat tenderizer. “That’s a lot better. Aim for the head. If not, aim for the side of the knee or the kidneys. If you can’t kill ’em, it will at least give you time to run away by slowing him down.”
“These won’t do shit,” Jared said. “He’s a vampire, remember?”
Roy shook his head. “Not this again.”
“He’s a goddamn bloodsucker, Roy!” Jared’s voice cracked. “I’m not playing with you right now. I’m serious!”
Wendy stayed quiet. She didn’t know what the hell to believe.
Roy sighed. “Fine. Say he’s a vampire. What the hell are we supposed to do? Stake him through the heart? Like in the movies? Do you see any stakes anywhere?”
“We can make some.”
“We don’t have the time,” Wendy reminded them.
“Then we kill him the old way,” Jared said, teeth bared. “We burn him. Fire beats everything, right?”
Roy was quiet for a second. He rummaged through the drawers and found a blow torch. He then ran toward the sink, opened the lower cabinets, and found an aerosol can. He quickly ran toward the other cabinet, where he found duct tape, and started taping the blow torch together with the rotisserie skewer. It took him less than two minutes.
“The fuck, Roy?” Wendy said, impressed. “Nice.”
“Flamethrower. But it wouldn’t last long. Maybe a few seconds of juice in this bad boy?”
“Where’d you even learn how to make that?”
Roy shrugged. Then grinned. “Well, kid, you learned a thing or two in the Summer of ’87.”
Jared nodded. “Fucking A, gramps. Vampires hate fire, too. In the movies, one died from a windmill that was on fire, I think.”
“That’s Frankenstein’s monster,” Wendy corrected.
“No, that’s not—wait, really?”
“Yeah. Really. I watched that movie like a million times with my dad.”
“Oh. Hopefully, the fire will keep him off us, at least. Every creature on this planet is afraid of fire. Maybe vampires are scared of it, too.”
An idea popped inside Wendy’s head.
“Maybe this will help, too.”
Wendy strode toward the pantry door and opened the cabinet. All kinds of foods—dry and canned—were inside. But she grabbed a bowl of fresh garlic and walked back to the kitchen island. She used the knife to cut the garlic open, popped one in her mouth, and started chewing.
Wendy handed a clove of garlic to Roy and Jared. “Eat.”
“You think this is gonna work?” Jared asked.
“Vampires don’t like garlic, right? If he’s a vampire, that is. Maybe it’ll taint our blood?”
Jared nodded. “Ah, I see what you mean.” He shoved more garlic cloves inside his pocket. “Maybe we can throw it at him?”
Wendy was about to grab a fistful but realized she was wearing a dress. “Damn. I don’t have any pockets.”
Roy just shook his head but took the garlic clove and popped it inside his mouth anyway. Jared did the same.
“Now we got that damn garlic breath, where should we go next?” Roy asked.
Wendy felt the panic rise again and tried to push it down. And then it hit her.
“My room,” she said.
The boys turned to look at her.
“My room!” she said again, louder. “When I woke up, I was confused and dizzy. I was trying to take this stupid makeup they put on me, and when I looked in the mirror…I saw…” She didn’t finish her thought. “Never mind that. But I managed to open the window to look at something outside. I think the window is still open! I never closed it.”
Roy blinked at her. Jared stared like she’d just handed him a key to the kingdom. "Fuck yeah, that's what we should do then! Let's go up there!"
“Are you sure?” Roy asked.
“Yes, I’m sure! If we can get back up there,” Wendy said, “we can get out.”
“It’s a long drop, but we can use the bedsheets. Like, make a ladder out of it?” Jared suggested.
“That’s a good idea,” Wendy said.
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“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Jared said.
They went back out to the hallway, armed with whatever weapons they grabbed from the kitchen. This time, Roy was leading the way with the makeshift flamethrower. Now that they had a plan, Jared had almost forgotten he was injured. He still favored his other hand when gripping the meat tenderizer. Behind him, Wendy clutched at the hem of Jared’s suit jacket, afraid to get separated from the group.
The grandfather clock chimed loudly, making the delvers jump.
Seven minutes was up.
“Do you think they’re coming?” Wendy whispered, trembling a little.
Roy nodded and elaborated, “Do you think he’s the only one coming?”
“Well, one way to find out,” Jared said. He continued walking down the hall and entered the foyer.
All of a sudden, all the lights went out courtesy of the Duke, who kept to the shadows, quiet as a mouse and out of sight.
“Jesus Christ!” Wendy gritted her teeth. “That’s bad, right?”
“I can’t see a fucking thing,” Jared said.
“We should have looked for a flashlight,” Wendy said.
“Don’t move. Stay close together,” Roy barked.
Duke Henry was merely a foot away from Wendy’s reach. The vampire moved from behind, and the subtle gust of wind made Wendy gasp out loud and stuck closer to Jared’s side.
“What was that? What the fuck was that?!”
“What? What? What did you see?”
“I can’t see shit! I felt someone move behind me.”
“I don’t see…fuck, we need light, man.”
“Just follow my voice,” Roy said. “Yeah, that’s it. I think I see something up ahead.”
Roy lit the blow torch, which let out a very dim glow. But it was enough to lead Roy toward a console table with two drawers. He opened the first one but didn’t find anything he liked, although the second one was a success. He grabbed two flashlights from inside and handed them to Jared and Wendy.
“Here. Use this,” he said.
“Ah, finally! Some light—” Wendy turned on the flashlight…
And as the light swept across the room, she noticed Duke Henry’s sneering face standing between the parlour room’s open door. Wendy screamed.
“Over there! He’s over there!”
Jared’s flashlight swept to where Wendy pointed, but Henry was already gone.
“Where’d he go?” Wendy asked, frantic.
“Are you sure you saw him?” Roy asked.
“I swear! He was right there!”
Jared was losing it. “I told you, man! I told you! He’s a vampire!”
Roy had had enough. “Shut up. Just shut up, will you?” He snatched the flashlight from Jared’s shaky grip. The beam flared briefly before Roy turned it toward the parlour room. He stepped inside and paused.
Empty.
Wendy edged up behind him, eyes darting like cornered prey. “Are you sure? Be careful.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Empty. See?” Roy took another sweep across the room with the flashlight.
“We’re wasting time chasing a vampire,” Jared said. “We should leave right now. The stairs are right this way—”
Wendy turned, lifting her flashlight toward the staircase—toward Jared—until,
A shape moved from her right.
Her heart skipped a beat.
A blur. A flicker.
And Henry was there, right there, standing in front of Jared like he’d always been. Pale face, eyes piercing red, glowing like a dull laser pointer. He smiled.
“Hi,” Henry said.
Then, Henry’s hand closed around his throat. His other hand grabbed Jared by the front of his jacket. Lifted him like he weighed nothing like he was a fucking toy.
Jared screamed—high and girlish, full of real terror—and the mallet clattered down the stairs as his feet left the ground. Legs kicked. Arms flailed.
Then Henry shot up toward the second floor, dragging Jared over the banister like a ragdoll. Up and gone. His screams faded as they rose, swallowed by the pitch darkness of the upper floors.
Wendy and Roy stood there, shocked, unable to make the first move.
“That’s…that’s not…possible…” Roy muttered. “Did he just fly?”
“I...I don’t…I think so.” Wendy shook her head. “Yeah, Roy. Um, he flew.”
Roy paled. “What the fuck is this shit? I’m too old for this stupid supernatural shit.” He muttered under his breath.
Another scream from Jared. Faint. Far away.
It spurred Wendy to move. “We have to help him.”
“Wendy, wait!”
“Roy, come on! We have to help him!”
“Wen! Wait! We shouldn’t—!”
But it was too late.
She bolted up the stairs, heels clacking. Roy cursed and followed, the jerry-rigged flamethrower swinging in his arms, aerosol can hissing just a little from the nozzle. He paused at the dropped mallet on the first step and thought about grabbing it, but his hands were already full of weapons. No time.
Wendy hit the landing and looked around. “Where’d they go?”
“I think they went left,” Roy said, then immediately changed his mind. “No! Right!”
“Which one?!”
“I don’t fucking know! It was too dark! I’m pretty sure he took him down there. Eighty percent sure.”
“Whatever! Let’s go over here.” Wendy picked the hallway leading to the manor's west wing, and Roy followed.
Fortunately for them, Jared let out another whimpered cry from down the hall. Roy and Wendy ran toward the noise, even when a part of them wanted to keep heading toward the third floor.
Toward the exit and, eventually, their escape.
The door at the end of the hallway gave under Wendy’s shoulder with a hollow crack, and they stumbled forward into a gallery hall, the kind of place you’d find in a palace like Versailles. Elaborate Baroque-style frescos on the ceiling, peppered with decorations in silver, white, and gold trims throughout the room. One side was lined with wall-sized paintings, while the other had tall arched windows looking out onto the dark inner courtyard.
In the middle of the hall, Jared lay on the ground.
“Jared!” Wendy cried out and ran to his side. “Oh my god, he’s bleeding!”
“He bit me,” Jared muttered through gritted teeth. “Shoulder. Garlic didn't work.”
Wendy peeled back the torn collar and winced. The bite was ugly but not deep, flesh broken, but nothing looked too damaged or serious. Still, it glistened wet and red, and her stomach twisted.
Roy stayed standing, scanning the room. “He’s not here. Where the hell did that guy go?”
“Roy, he’s bleeding. Help me!”
“Right. Shit. Hold on.” Roy dropped the flamethrower, and the aerosol can beside Jared with a clank, then yanked off his suit jacket, pressing it hard to the wound. “Hold that. Did he get stabbed?”
“It’s a bite.”
“A… bite?” His voice dropped. Roy picked up the flamethrower again. “Move away from him, Wendy.”
“What? What are you doing? Put that away!”
“He got bit by a vampire. Don’t you watch the goddamn movies?”
“Roy—come on! Help me get him up!”
“Great. Now you believe me?” Jared barked. “Freaking bad timing, man. Put that fucking shit away from my face!”
“Yeah, alright, so he’s a vampire,” Roy said. “But Wendy, he might be turning. That’s how this shit starts. A bite. That’s always how it starts. He has the disease or something. He’ll turn into Dracula!”
Wendy’s hands faltered. A little bit of clarity crossed her mind, and she couldn’t argue that the thought did occur to her. She had seen plenty of movies about vampires, werewolves, and zombies to know that bites…bites were pretty bad.
She started moving away from him.
“Wendy? Seriously?” Jared said. “It’s still me! I’m not turning, alright? He just bit me. Look, I’m standing!” He pushed himself upright and wobbled, blood dripping down his arm. Wendy flinched away like he was about to attack him.
“I’m serious! I’m not turning!”
Roy stepped between them, shoved Wendy behind him, and leveled the flamethrower at Jared’s chest. “Back off. We just gotta be sure, alright? You come at us; I light you up. Keep your distance.”
“Are you really gonna fucking burn me, Roy?” Jared took another step forward.
“I…I don’t…just stop moving! Don’t move!”
“Roy, I don’t think it works that way,” Wendy tried to reason with him. “Or work that fast.”
“Look, we’re in new shit territory here, alright? We don’t have the bigger picture!”
“Exactly! Why don’t we move to a safer room than standing out here in the hallway when that guy is still around?”
The room fell silent for a beat.
Then—
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Soft, slow, deliberate.
From the far end of the gallery, Henry emerged from the dark. That same half-smile. Blood dripped lazily from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his chin like wine. He licked it clean with a long, slow drag of his tongue.
“Is that…garlic?” Henry teased.
The others didn’t answer.
Henry gave it another lick. “Yes…it is garlic. My favorite.”
He took two delicate steps forward.
“I must say,” he drawled, voice honeyed-silk and gravelly, “you are quite a treat, Jared. Not fully seasoned, no, but getting there.”
Jared scrambled back toward Roy and Wendy. “What are you waiting for, Roy? Blast him!”
“S…s…stay back!” Roy barked, hands shaking. Eyes flicking from Jared to Henry and back again. He gripped the flamethrower and the aerosol can.
“Blast him!” Jared hissed.
“I—hold on just a minute! I can’t get the angle right! Don’t rush me!”
Henry took another step. He’s about twenty-five feet away from them.
“Careful, Henry,” I said, more out of instinct than confidence. “It’s fire.”
Truth was, I had no damn clue what could kill a dungeon vampire. Henry’s stat sheet said sunlight, stake to the heart—classic crap—but nothing else. The kind of stuff the delvers didn’t have. Fire might slow him down, but it wouldn’t stop him. But deep down, I found myself agreeing with Jared: fire could kill anything.
Even Henry.
Henry gave me a look as if to say, “Oh, please.”
“I said stay the fuck back!” Roy shouted again.
Henry’s nails had grown exceptionally sharp and claw-like since I left him in the dining hall. Old, cracked, and yellowish, as if he had been growing it out for years.
Henry widened his smile, making sure that the delvers could see his sharp, elongated, canine fangs.
Showing his true self.
“Oh, Roy, Roy, Roy…” Henry tutted, tapping one of those claw-nails against his chin.
“You know who I am now. I could slit your throat with one nail before you get that toy of yours to spit a single flame. And then I’ll feast—blood, brain, spinal fluid—ripped from your body like sucking marrow from a cracked bone. And after that, your companions. They will run. They will scream. They will be in total agony. Do you all still want to fight or run?”
None of them moved. Not a single step. Muscles twitching under their skin, bones jittering with adrenaline. It was like standing on a frozen lake and hearing the ice crack. They wanted to run. They just didn’t know where to go that wouldn’t kill them faster.
Then Henry struck fast.
In a blink, he was in their midst. One second across the room, the next there. No wind-up. No warning. Just a blur of teeth and shadow.
Roy turned the flamethrower around but fumbled with the can with his shaking hands, slippery with sweat. In that heartbeat of hesitation, Henry smashed the back of his hand across Roy’s jaw. The sound it made was wet. Roy yelped and flew like he’d been hit by a train, body twisting midair, the can tumbling from his grip. He landed hard. Didn’t get up, groaning on the floor instead.
The vampire snarled, annoyed. Henry lashed out with one leg and kicked Jared square in the gut. Jared didn’t have the reaction time to block it, and he sailed backward like a broken toy, collided with the wall with a loud crack, and slid down crumpled to the floor.
Wendy was still fighting. She clawed at Henry’s fingers, his arm, and tried to yank herself free. Henry turned to her with a calm, almost clinical look in his eye. Grabbed a fistful of her hair. Yanked her head to the side too hard, like he meant to snap her neck, and leaned in.
His mouth opened wide. Wider than it anatomically should’ve been. And then—
The bite.
Wendy screamed.
The scream that she let out wasn’t human. It scraped the inside of her throat like glass. Henry clamped down, and the sound of him feeding filled the gallery with thick, wet, sucking noises. Her legs kicked. Her fingers twitched. Her eyes rolled over.
But Henry held back.
Then—wham—he shoved her with a fist like a cinderblock. She flew backward, limbs cartwheeling, and slammed into Roy just as he was struggling to get up. They collapsed in a tangle of limbs and groans. The meat cleaver was now in Henry’s hand.
Henry’s eyes had gone black, that same red glint in his eyes still remained, but his face was slick with Wendy’s blood. It oozed down his chin in long, sticky crimson ropes, gums painted red, his teeth clacking like an animal savoring a kill. He licked his bottom lips slowly like he was tasting and savoring wine.
“That,” he said, “was just the appetizer.”
Jared came in silent and fast behind Henry, carrying a marble bust of some fake mustached ancestor of Henry’s over his head, and slammed it over Henry’s shoulders. Not all of the statue splintered and cracked, just the nose and several chips of its hair. The sound it made wasn’t satisfying. Jared stood there for a second too long, and I could tell by his face that he was asking himself: what the fuck now?
Henry didn’t flinch.
He wrapped a meaty hand around Jared’s throat and squeezed until the man’s eyes bulged. Henry punched him in the gut, and Jared folded, gasping for air.
“When will you learn, boy?” Henry said, voice low and mocking. “Don’t raise your hand to your elders.”
“We need to get out of here,” Wendy said, trying to stop the bleeding on her neck with her bare hands.
But Roy ignored her. He spotted the aerosol can rolling across the hardwood floor, trailing in a thin arc like it wanted to be found. He lunged for it on his elbows, fingers scrabbling. Henry, too busy ragdolling Jared into a pile of drywall and plaster, didn’t notice.
Roy flicked the kitchen torch on, and a gout of fire burst from the can, engulfing the vampire in a roar of flame.
Henry staggered. Arms up. Screamed like a wounded animal. Roy kept the flame on him, screaming too between fury, adrenaline, and pure, raw panic.
“Burn, motherfucker, burn!” He shouted.
The air reeked of burning hair and charred meat.
But it didn’t last.
Henry stepped through the cone of fire. Skin blistered, face cracked like slow overcooked pork; the flames chewed and singed his clothes. Still, he moved slowly but relentlessly. A walking bonfire.
He reached Roy, wrenched the makeshift flamethrower, and tossed it like garbage.
Then he grabbed Roy by the throat and the collar of his jacket.
“That was fucking irritating,” Henry growled. But his regenerative healing was already working. His face began to knit back together in real time. Sizzling flesh sealed itself in seconds. Eyebrows sprouted like weeds in spring. His sagged left eye pulled itself back together in its place, the irises in his eyes returning to its dark, haunting color.
And then they flew.
Henry shot upward, dragging Roy along with him. He smashed him against the ceiling with a bone-rattling thud. Roy dangled, feet kicking, throat still crushed in Henry’s grip.
Then Henry dragged him across the ceiling. Roy’s face scraped tile and wood, leaving a long, wet smear behind. Skin peeled away in sheets.
Wendy screamed from below. Jared ran to her and pulled her up hard enough to nearly wrench her arm from the socket.
“We need to go! Now!”
They bolted out of the hall.
Henry dropped Roy from thirteen feet. Roy landed hard, stomach first, jaw snapping against the floorboards with a loud breaking crack.
Henry gently glided down to the floor and watched the swinging door across the room where Wendy and Jared had fled. He didn’t give chase.
Instead, he turned Roy over on his back with his foot.
Blood covered Roy’s face. I could even see his exposed gums and teeth through his torn cheeks and the side of his right eyeball where his eyelids were peeled open. He almost looked like two-face from Batman, I thought. The sudden movement pushed air up Roy’s throat, and he burst of blood gurgled out of his mouth and out through the open cheek.
“Please…Please…” Roy begged, but he couldn’t find the words. It hurt too much to speak.
Henry knelt at his side.
“I am impressed by you, Roy. It wasn’t long ago when you and I played darts over at the bar. You have a good aim. You are resourceful. A fighter. I like that. I like my food when they fight back. To cower is just…bland.”
Roy kept his gaze on him. That’s all he could do, really, waiting at the mercy of a creature he thought only existed in the movies. But now it’s here, Roy thought. And I am the food. He had always believed that the people from horror movies were too stupid for their own good. He had lost count of how many times he got frustrated by the characters’ decisions that ended up with them killed. Now I’m that fucking loser. He should have run while he had the chance. Now, he couldn’t move away from a predator.
“Please…” he croaked.
Henry smiled and caressed Roy’s hair. “Even now, you are still fighting.”
Roy’s aura remained at a blood-orange. It had been like that since Henry initiated the fight.
“You are broken. You are injured beyond repair. You must give yourself to me, child. Your blood. Your…everything. And I will end such pain you are suffering now. I will end it in ecstasy if you wish it.”
“Please…” Roy strained through gritted teeth. I want to live, he wanted to say. I don’t want to die.
Henry frowned. “You don’t want to die?”
Roy slowly shook his head. Even moving his neck was a chore.
Henry looked at him for a long, long moment.
Roy focused on that red glint in the vampire’s eyes. Mesmerized.
“I see value in you,” Henry said. It wasn’t a question; he was just stating his opinion. “It just so happens that I have a vacancy here at the manor.”
Henry ran his finger along Roy’s torn cheek, scraped a stain of blood, and licked his finger.
“You might be the man for the job. Are you?”
Roy waited, processing what the vampire was asking.
“You will work for me,” Henry explained. “You will be alive, flesh and blood pumping still. You will have a slice of my strength, speed, and constitution. You will not fear the test of time. But you will belong to me forever, my familiar. But I will need your consent.”
Roy’s eyes welled with tears. He understood. Maybe. But a part of him would rather die, yet the strong sheer fucking will to survive won over.
“Y…y…yes…” He managed to say.
Henry lifted his hand and hovered his wrist over Roy’s face. He made a small slice on his wrist with his sharp finger. Blood trickled out.
As the vampire’s blood touched Roy Sherman’s lips, his Resolve immediately dropped to red.
Henry’s smile widened.
“Drink, my child. You are mine now. And you now belong to him.”
[ You have gained 1 essence: Roy Sherman ]
[ You have gained 150 crystals ]
“Huh. That’s very interesting. I somehow got his essence, but he wasn't killed,” I said.
“Because he is no longer mortal,” Henry said. “He’s becoming one of us. Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
Roy gulped down the trickle of vampiric blood, then his eyes shot open wide, grabbed Henry’s bleeding wrist with the strength he probably didn’t know he still had and pulled the open wound closer to his lips. Roy moaned and lapped it up as if he was parched for days.
“Ah, tut, tut, tut…slow. Slow down. There’s more. Plenty more. You do not want a bellyache.”
Roy shuddered as Henry’s blood took control of him. His torn cheek began to heal, muscle, veins, and fat bubbling into existence, and closed the gap until I could no longer see his exposed gums and teeth.
Roy parted his lips from Henry’s wrist and took a lungful of air. “My…my chest…it’s burning…” He clawed at his chest, ripping his shirt open. “Fuck…it hurts…hurts…”
"Shed your mortal coil, Roy. Abandon it.”
“What’s happening to him?” I asked worriedly.
“Transitional Phase,” Henry said as if that explained everything.
I rolled my eyes. “And?”
“Oh. Right. He’s currently being pulled and pried between two worlds. Your domain and the one outside. The System is recalibrating who is. He’s not signing a contract, after all. Do not worry, my lord. The pain will only last for a short time.”
Ah, I see. “So, archetypes get contracts from the System, and Roy gets a...”
“A minion of your domain. Mortals who choose to serve you rather than become delvers themselves. It is quite a common occurrence in more benevolent dungeons.”
Right. I forgot that archetypes get a basic manual of what the System could do for them. Since Henry had minion traits already built into [ Strict Vampirism ], he knew all about it. I couldn’t say I’m jealous...but, I wish I had the entire manual right about now.
“But transitions of service into a Death Core’s domain is known to be very, very painful that not many mortals choose such a fate.”
I frowned. But Roy’s desperate to survive. At all cost.
Roy let out a blood-curdling scream that rattled the hall.
Henry sighed. “And I see now that is true. Demon would have love this.”