Nothing tickled a girl's fancy quite like a Shaft with two balls. The dead wizard's spheres hovered idly around Maria with auras of fire and lightning. Her eyes were illuminated with bright red demonic influence as she smiled. Her short forest green dress was frayed and torn from a battle that hadn't gone her way. Shaft's hood was pulled over her curled gold locks and tied at her neck, hiding the deep gash in her throat that had brought her to her mortal end.
Richter was doubled over in exhaustion and fighting to regain his senses. Shaft's fading influence over him left his mind numb and disoriented. Alucard was lying on the floor a few yards away in agonized defeat. He was no match for the beautiful monstrosity Maria had become.
Shaft's attempts at summoning a gauntlet of past monsters to crush Richter had failed. Returning as a lich commanding an undead wyvern and behemoth had failed. Possessing Richter and turning him against Dracula's wayward offspring had failed. But this latest scheme was playing out differently. Dracula was on the verge of resurrecting after Shaft had opened the neck of the sacrificial sow and let her blood spill on his coffin. Wanting no parts to go to waste, Shaft was using her flesh husk as yet another puppet. His vile sorcery and her spiritual powers weaved together in an unholy waltz.
Maria laughed in a voice that couldn't have come from her own ruined vocal chords, an unnatural voice that transcended the realm of the living. Four enormous lumbering shapes emerged at their mistress's beckoning, changing from the nebulous darkness behind Maria to the black outlines of a bird, a dragon, a tiger, and a turtle. The four Guardian Beasts looked diseased, ravaged, and driven to madness.
"The useless hunter and the imbecile son. I've played with you for long enough," Maria rasped in the tone of an ancient decrepit witch who had a fiendish sense of humor. "I think I'll give you to my pets so they can have their fill."
Shaft's two orbs floated over Maria's head like a pair of phantom eyes looming above her own. The shadows of the Beasts lunged on Richter and Alucard in a vicious frenzy.
Author's note: Starts Castlevania and ends up Fushigi Yuugi.