The door of the top floor of the north tower bursts open, flying off the hinges. Osmond lowers his leg and strides through the entry, his chest puffed out and his staff glowing with crackling purple energy.
The vampiress is curled up in a chair on the other side of the room - her dress a bold crimson, just like her eyes.
"So, the humans really have tad a demon."
She blinks slowly, fluttering her eyelids. Her gaze drifts from Osmond to his companion, Haima.
"Tad by a small woman, no less."
The vampiress rises from her chair, gliding over the floor. "A woman who slls like blood. Who are you, who would ta a demon?"
Haima's eyes dart over to Osmond, hoping he'd respond. He looks at Haima to do the sa.
"Osmond joined our cause of his own free will!" Haima shouts. "I think."
He nods. "I would follow Maria to the end of the earth."
The vampiress sighs. "That's nice." She flicks her hand dismissively toward them. "I've been looking forward to fighting you since I heard you were arriving. Excuse if I'm not too interested in the pre-fight banter. Now, die."
The vampire Incantra raises her right arm high, and the ceiling of the tower begins to drip blood. It flows deep and thick, quickly descending into a rain of red. Osmond finds it unnerving - Haima finds it refreshing.
Incantra lunges forward, swinging her hand and clenching her fist. The blood rises from the floor into a blade, hurtling toward Osmond. He sidesteps the blade but it reforms and speeds toward him again.
"Secret Art: Blood Domination!" Haima shouts. The bloody blade locks in place, and the blood along the ceiling freezes.
Incantra looks at what's happening in confusion - just the opening they need. Osmond's skin begins to crackle with purple energy and he swings his staff. He launches a ball of magical plasma at the vampiress and it connects. She's knocked onto the floor as the energy overtakes her.
Incantra lays prone, ravaged by the magic. But as Osmond moves toward her to finish the job, she lts into the floor.
She reappears behind Haima in a flash, brandishing a knife of blood. She swings at Haima, but misses as Haima ducks at the last mont. She sweep kicks the vampiress, knocking her back.
Incantra hisses, raising more blood from the ground in the shape of a spear. Haima clasps her hands together and makes the magic inert.
Incantra takes a mont to gather herself and survey the battlefield. "A crafty technique," she snarls. "What are you doing to my blood, woman?"
Haima stands tall. She would have used her technique to control Incantra's movents, but the vampiress is too strong.
"My na is Haima Gore," she says, eyeing Incantra down. The vampiress' eyes flare up.
"A GORE, ah? So that's why your magic is so familiar."
Haima's eye twitches. "What do you an, fiend?"
The vampiress laughs, grabbing a fistful of her filthy blonde hair. "They made to kill your kind, ha ha! Your people couldn't use their magic around ! Now that I know, I can have so fun!"
The vampiress' fingers crack, and the blood begins to churn violently. Suddenly, it begins to warp and turn into thick tendrils. They rise from the ground and wrap around both Osmond and Haima like vines, binding them both in place.
"Haima! I'm stuck!" Osmond shrieks. He's completely immobilized, and so is she.
Haima eyes her down. "You change the property of blood, is that it?"
The vampiress shakes her hair out of her face. "Your technique doesn't work on this hardened blood, does it?"
Haima is slightly amused, but she hides her confidence. "One could hardly call these tendrils blood, for sure."
"I've killed so many of your kind. Doesn't it infuriate you, woman?"
"I said my na is Haima," she says. "And I feel no fury. Truth be told, I left my clan long ago."
"Ah, a reject. That explains why you haven't used any blood magic yourself. Just interfered with mine. Hm, hm."
Haima's finger twitches. "Is that what you think, vampire?"
Her mind flits to the past for the second ti in two days - a rarity for her. She recalls learning the Secret Arts. Manipulating blood. She was a prodigy. But blood was just the beginning.
In the Gore family, Haima was unique, even among her people. At the age of fifteen, she'd already mastered all of the Secret Arts. That was when she decided to develop her own.
Her power developed. She began to understand the intricacies of the body. Not just blood - the body itself. The flesh.
She learned not just to control a human by manipulating their blood. Their at bent to her will. And eventually, even bone. There was no biological matter that she couldn't manipulate.
Her power had grown too much - by eighteen, she was outcast from her clan for practicing forbidden arts. But it never stopped Haima. She embodied 'Gore', even if her family couldn't see her brilliance. Even if all other humans feared her for what she was. She would never apologize for greatness.
Haima blinks. She resolves herself. There's only one thing she needs to say. "Osmond, never speak of this."
Her eyes lock with Incantra's, and its already too late for the vampire. Suddenly, Incantra's flesh begins to twist and contort as Haima manipulates not her blood, but her flesh. She convulses, stamring and screaming in pain. Her body morphs into an alien shape as she stumbles back and shrieks in agony. The at underneath her skin bubbles and churns.
The vines of blood that bind Haima and Osmond fall away. Incantra whines in incomprehensible pain as the at in her body turns against her, and her bones turn into slush. Incantra's fangs protrude through her skull, cracking and splintering.
"I could thank you, for helping rid the world of my family. The Gores were short-sighted. They couldn't recognize the apex of their ability when it was right in front of them."
Incantra is unrecognizable - an abomination of flesh. She can do nothing but gasp in agony.
"No vampire will ever best . You are blood, flesh and bone. You are nothing but a plaything to ."
Haima stretches her arms out wide, and Incantra is eviscerated. A million pieces of the vampiress are expelled violently from her body, her whole existence reduced to sludge. Even as a puddle, Incantra continues to writhe in ungodly pain.
"My god," Osmond says. Even the demon is distraught over what he's witnessing.
She rises what's left of Incantra in a floating ball of bloody mush, clenching her fist as she does. Imdiately, the gore is compacted, reduced to a cube small enough to fit in Haima's hand.
'They called a monster,' Haima thinks to herself, staring at the compact cube of gore floating above her hand. "Maybe they were right." Her fingers trembled, the weight of her power heavy in her chest. But then she sees Osmond, who seems pleased and proud of her performance. She snatches the cube out of the air and pockets it.
Haima turns to Osmond, somber calm taking over her deanor. A shiver rushes through her body, and she quivers. She wipes her nose, which now leaks blood.
"I'm not proud of my power," she says quietly, her words directed to Osmond. "But it is sacred. This power exists for a purpose, and Barns resurrected for a reason. That is what I have to believe."
Her words are to convince Osmond as much as herself. In truth, she despised her power. The power that cost her a place within her family. The power that made her a pariah. But perhaps, in this post-apocalyptic world, that power would beco her reason to exist.
Haima licks her lips. "The others may need help," she says flatly. "Let's finish up here and find the others."
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