The guard’s throat worked as he swallowed, his eyes darting nervously toward the corridor as though he half-expected Clentine to reappear and catch him speaking. His grip tightened again on the sword’s hilt, though his knuckles were pale and the blade trembled. "From... from what I’ve gathered," he began slowly, each word sounding as though it were dragged from him against his will, "four of Necros’s Apostles have attacked Tulmud’s capital."
Van Dijk’s brows rose, faintly, his smile freezing into sothing more intent. The torchlight flickered across his sharp features, throwing his pale skin into ghostly relief. He leaned just slightly closer, not nacingly, but in the manner of a man savoring an unexpected flavor. "Four?" he murmured, the word carrying weight. He let silence reign for a mont, long enough for the guard’s breathing to quicken. Then, almost indulgently: "The Cardinal only ntioned the Shrike. Quite the interesting change. Go on. Tell of these four."
The guard licked dry lips. "So far... one of them is already dead. Or so the reports claim. The King of Marrow, the Lich. Saint Mot... destroyed him."
"Oh, that fellow, I doubt he’s really dead," Van Dijk replied, almost idly, as if discussing a familiar acquaintance rather than a monstrous being. His gaze grew distant, mories flickering in his eyes. "Still clinging to his phylactery, no doubt. I fought him so two centuries past. He was unimpressive then, a child dabbling in powers he hardly understood. I doubt he has matured into anything worth the title of king." His smile sharpened into sothing cruel. "Destroyed, you say? No, no. Not truly. He’ll crawl back, given ti."
The guard shifted, uneasy at how casually Van Dijk dismissed what others had considered a monuntal victory. Still, he pressed on. "There was also Crucendo. His harpist clone was killed... and his piper clone as well, slain by a young rising hero."
Van Dijk chuckled quietly, almost kindly, as though amused by a child’s drawing. "So, two masks stripped away. Four more yet hidden. He is not gone, not yet. Crucendo has always been more parasite than poet. He will grow them again, festering, spreading. His strings are not so easily cut."
The guard swallowed again, though the vampire’s tone carried no malice toward him, only toward the nas he spoke. "And then... Sister Gallows," he continued, his voice dropping as if the na itself carried weight.
Van Dijk inclined his head, expression unchanged. "Ah, her. Yes, Clentine already muttered her na."
The silence stretched again, thick, oppressive. The guard shifted, sweat trickling down the side of his temple as if compelled to continue. "The last one... isn’t confird. But... it is highly likely."
Van Dijk’s eyes narrowed, the playful gleam dimming to sothing sharper, colder. "Who?"
The guard hesitated. Then the word fell, heavy and raw. "A werewolf."
The chamber itself seed to tighten at the utterance. The air thickened, as though a storm had descended. Cold spread outward, invisible fingers clawing into stone, creeping into marrow. The torches guttered, shadows stretching long and warped across the walls.
Van Dijk’s smile did not falter, but the aura around him shifted with such violence that the guard staggered back, his sword clattering against the stone as his knees weakened. It was as though death itself had stepped closer, unseen but undeniable. His expression was unchanged, still calm, still the sa faint grin, but sothing in the air scread predator, scread danger, scread end.
The guard broke into a cold sweat, his breath ragged. His words ca out tumbling, desperate to fill the silence. "I-I don’t know much more! Only what the reports say, this werewolf is unlike any seen before. Larger, faster, far deadlier than anything the continent has ever recorded. It," he stamred, "it is currently fighting against Titania, Saint Mot, the young hero Davon, and... a silver-haired true vampire."
The tension cracked slightly. Van Dijk blinked once, the cold intensity shifting, though his eyes narrowed. "Silver hair?" he repeated, voice sharp as glass.
The guard nodded frantically. "Yes. That is what the reports said."
A frown etched itself across Van Dijk’s face for the first ti in their conversation. His voice dropped lower, heavier. "That is not possible. The only silver-haired true vampire clan... is the Bastos clan." His words ca slowly, with the weight of centuries. "And all of them are dead. Every last one. Seven hundred years ago."
The guard, trembling, glanced at Van Dijk’s own hair, dark as the void, and faltered.
"I am different," Van Dijk said simply, his tone cutting away questions before they could form.
The guard’s lips parted, then closed again, as though so instinct scread at him not to press further. But he rembered the last detail, and forced it out with trembling breath. "She was different, too. She had... strange eyes. One green. One red."
Van Dijk’s frown deepened. His stillness now was more ominous than his earlier rage, a depthless silence filled with calculation. A silver-haired vampire with mixed eyes? The odds were impossible. It was the kind of report he would have dismissed outright, if not for the instinct gnawing at him that the impossible had sohow clawed its way into reality.
The guard could not bear the silence. "That is... all I know."
Van Dijk’s voice, when it returned, was almost gentle. "I see."
The guard exhaled shakily, as if those two words had lifted a weight, only for his relief to shatter as Van Dijk’s eyes glimred, two pinpricks of unnatural light piercing the gloom.
"I need to see that for myself then," Van Dijk muttered then locked eyes with the guard, "How about," Van Dijk said softly, his voice a velvet knife, "you take a small nap?"
The guard blinked, confused. "I... I cannot. I’m on duty, "
"Oh," Van Dijk whispered, the smile returning, cruel and amused all at once, "that was not a request."
Light blood in his gaze. The guard’s body shuddered, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed bonelessly onto the stone, his head striking the floor with a dull thud.
Van Dijk’s face wrinkled faintly in distaste. He crouched slightly, glancing at the man’s temple. "Hmm. I hope that doesn’t bruise. I would hate for him to wake with a headache."
Straightening with effortless grace, he dusted off his immaculate sleeves, and with a step forward, his body dissolved into the air itself, gone, as though the shadows had swallowed him whole.
User Comments
0 comments from readers