When I reappeared I was standing inside of her home.
I walked down the darkened hallways that had been ruined by age and war.
When I reached the familiar blood red door I threw the door open and walked inside.
She looked up from her painting.
"Hello Will. I figured you be stopping by" she put her paintbrush down and walked over to me.
She was wearing a silky blood red dress that had a blood red corset as the base and long silk strips that traveled down to the floor.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek.
I pushed her away and wiped the kiss off my cheek.
"We need to talk" I walked over to a couch and sat down. She sat down beside me.
"Yes we do. It would appear that you have gone against the rules," she purred. "What rules would that be?" she leaned over and whispered in my ear.
"You fell in love…with a human" she leaned back and got up from the couch. "If I remember correctly I'm not the only one who's fallen in love with a human" I retorted. She froze and turned and turned to face me. "True. But this would be the second time you've fallen" she smiled.
She picked her paintbrush back up and continued to paint. I got up from the couch and walked over to her. "I know what you did" I looked down at her painting and saw that she was painting a man being ripped apart by hellhounds. "I've done a lot of things so you're going to have to thoroughly explain the incident" she dabbed her paintbrush in red and started painting all the hellhounds eyes red.
"You charmed that man to sleep with Alicia" she swirled the tip of the paintbrush in her goblet of water and then dabbed the tip in gray and started painting the background. "If you've just now figured that out then you've really lost your touch," she replied. "I've done my homework. Now tell me exactly how you charmed him" she put the paintbrush down and turned to face me.
"All I did was make him one giant hormone. Specifically to your precious little Alicia, it wasn't that hard to convince him to sleep with her. After all he wanted to anyway. So I got them together and well you know the rest" she walks past me and heads for the door. My anger is way past the boiling point.
I close my eyes and reappear in front of the door. Blocking her escape. "You made me kill them" I stated "you needed the thrill. After all, it's what we live off of" she closed her eyes and I did the same. I didn't know where she was headed but I had a pretty good idea.
When I reappeared I was standing next to her in front of the sanctuary.
"You need to accept what you are Will. There's no denying it," she said.
"Times have changed Lorial. I've changed" I looked down at her.
"You'll never change, it goes against everything you are and sooner or later you'll lose all control" she looked up at me.
"If you don't kill her Will then I will and you know that when I'm a hunting spree mercy isn't in my vocabulary" she closed her eyes and disappeared.
Even though she had gone I continued to stand in front of the sanctuary just staring at the mahogany door.
Kill Ashley? I couldn't, I would never forgive myself if I did something like that. But if I didn't kill her then Lorial would and that would be like sentencing Ashley to a lifetime of having her skin ripped off piece by piece and then once all her skin had been removed they would start all over again with a new slate.
So that was it. I would have to kill Ashley.