Part VIII
The gates of the castle's great hall flung open, and two agents of the Church bravely ventured into the belly of the monstrous castle.
There, lined up against the walls and gathered around the towering marble pillars, were the elite of Blackmore's court.
They were obviously the vampire aristocracy, for their attire was elegant and they wore expensive jewelry. They, too, had bodies altered in the image of birds, but unlike the grotesque soldiers that had guarded the entrance hall, these vampires were much more dignified and graceful in their appearance. One could not in good faith compare them to angels, but neither were they monstrous harpies.
Some of the vampires, though, wore steel rather than silk, and carried spears and swords; those were Gransurg Blackmore's personal bodyguards, an elite group of vampires that was, within the coven, second only to Blackmore himself in power and prestige.
The black lord of the castle was sitting in a tall, black throne at the opposite end of the hall. His appearance was at the same time both grotesque and regal, and his presence eclipsed those of the other vampires in the coven.
Kirei's eyes were drawn away from the monumental pillars and the vaulted ceiling, away from the burning eyes of the vampire nobles that glittered in the shadows of the flickering fires like pieces of charcoal. Sitting calmly in his throne, glancing absent-mindedly over the hall towards the two intruders, the great Ancestor Blackmore demanded Kirei's undivided attention.
A strange hybrid between a crow and a human, he had wings spanning almost six yards across. His feet were like those of a bird, and he had long black claws in the place of his fingernails. Locks of his long, black hair, almost completely obscured his face. His stone-cold lips were closed tightly, but tips of his two long fangs were still visible in the corners of his mouth.
Kirei could feel the gaze of the vampire's hidden eyes piercing him like a dagger.
"Greetings, Lord of the Black Wing," said Narbareck as she descended the stairs to the floor of the throne room.
Kirei followed, but remained a step or two behind her. The gates of the hall closed shut as soon as they had entered. Kirei couldn't help but feel like they had just walked into a mousetrap.
"Quite a lovely castle you've got here," Narbareck continued, after getting no reply from Blackmore or anyone in his retinue, "But I'm afraid your entrance hall will need a good cleaning."
"So you've defeated them all. You do live up to your reputation, Director."
"Yeah. You might wanna think of finding yourself some better minions. This lot barely managed to put up a fight."
"Cocky and a braggart. Well, I hope you enjoyed it. For it was your last one," said the vampire lord.
His words were threatening, but he uttered them with what was bordering with pure boredom.
The two warriors of the Church that had just obliterated his castle's defences and guards seemed like merely two annoying mosquitoes that only managed to stay alive for so long because he hadn't bothered to deal with them seriously.
He said it not as a threat, but as if it were fait accompli.
But Narbareck had different ideas.
"My last fight? But there are still some of you left alive."
"Yes. However, I do believe that a 'fight' has to be two-sided. Whereas you will just get killed right away. I can promise you that."
"So confident in your powers?"
"My powers? I'm afraid you got it wrong; I'm not going to waste my strength on vermin such as yourself. Guards."
Blackmore nonchalantly waved his hand, and six of the winged vampires wearing steel armour and helmets stepped forward. These were each as strong as half a dozen of those vampires that Narbareck had slaughtered in the entrance hall, but Kirei had by then stopped worrying about any of these vampires posing a real threat to Narbareck.
Save for the Lord Blackmore himself, he doubted that any creature in this castle was a match for her.
Narbareck herself didn't even bat an eye as the six vampires formed a line between her and Blackmore, pointing their spears at her.
"You think these are going to stop me, Black Wing?"
"I think that you won't be leaving this castle alive," Blackmore said, his voice suddenly colder than the steel in the hands of his bodyguards.
Narbareck just shot him a grin of definace.
The vampire lord sniffed in contempt and said, in a flat voice:
"Kill them."
His guards obeyed, and took a step forward.
Narbareck was waiting for just that.
She took out the Black Key that Kirei had given her out of her coat. The guards took another step forward.
Then, in one swift motion, Narbareck twisted her body, stretching the arm in which she held the Black Key, and with another twist in the opposite direction, threw the blade at the group of advancing vampires.
In the split second during which she executed her throwing technique, everyone, including Kirei, snickered at her – a single Black Key wouldn't do much against six heavily armed guards, so her action was rather pointless. It seemed more like an act of desperation.
However, they were all proven wrong.
The holy blade cut through the air with a loud swish, traversing the distance in only a fraction of the time that it would take with a normal throw.
Then, as it collided with the ground under the guardsmen's feet, all hell broke loose.
There was a massive explosion, accompanied by a flash of blinding yellow and white light, and the entire throne room shook from the impact. Thunderous noise of the blast continued to echo throughout the castle for some time.
Soon the banging in everyone's ears stopped and the smoke over the impact site cleared, allowing everyone to see the effects of Narbareck's attack - a large crater in the cobbled floor, and smoldering remains of the six vampires.
No one in the room could believe their eyes. A single attack had obliterated six heavily armed vampires at once.
It was the Burial Agency's secret technique – "Iron Plate Effect" – which allowed them to utilise even regular Black Keys in the most deadly manner possible, and to wreck havoc among the heretics.
Narbareck allowed herself a small and gleeful cackle, obviously proud of her handiwork and entertained by the disbelief of everyone present. Except Blackmore, who barely batted an eye over this sudden annihilation of some of his strongest soldiers.
Even if Narbareck's deadly technique surprised him, the ancient vampire lord retained his poker face.
"What did you do?" he asked calmly.
"I killed them. Isn't it rather obvious?"
"That brash attitude... funny - you remind me of someone I know."
"You mean Merem? Yeah, his mouth is sometimes too big even for my taste."
"Right," Blackmore said tiredly, "You know, you are quite talkative for someone just seconds away from death."
"Well, carpe diem and all that; better have as much fun as I can before I die. But, you seem awfully confident for someone who just lost a quarter of his guards."
"And you seem awfully confident for someone who's out of their holy weapons. You have no more Black Keys, you won't be able to carry out that attack again."
"Who says I don't have any more of 'em?"
"I do," Blackmore said, his lips curling a few millimeters into a faint ghost of a smile.
Narbareck and Kirei could feel a dark and menacing aura starting to spread from Blackmore; he was still perfectly still and composed, but his murderous instincts had started to boil beneath the cold and seemingly disinterested surface.
The dragon was finally starting to awaken.
"Tell, me, Director," the Ancestor said, rising to his feet, "do you believe in Hell?"
"I'm not particularly religious, I'm afraid."
"And yet you carry a cross around your neck."
"A trinket I got from my mother."
"My. I never would have thought that you're a sentimental type."
"Well, I'm full of surprises."
"Indeed. And, coincidentally, so am I."
With that, Blackmore took a step forward, his crimson eyes fixed on Narbareck.
His each step echoed eerily against the cold stonework of the ceiling. The killer aura was nigh tangible now.
Narbareck was still wearing a cocky smile on her face as she faced off the approaching vampire lord, but beneath her confident facade, her heart started pumping faster and faster.
"That's good. I love surprises. The routine wears me down."
"Insolent until the end, huh?" Blackmore said as he kept walking towards her.
He sniggered condescendingly at Narbareck, who was now only a few yards away.
"Well, that's just how I am."
"I'm looking forward to ending your life," he said. And he meant it.
Narbareck had damaged his prestige by invading his own castle, his safe haven for almost one thousand years. She was humiliating him in front of his court by talking back to him like that. And she was now challenging him to a duel with her; not only forcing him to waste his strength on her, but insulting him by trying to present herself as being an equal to him.
It bothered him, bothered him more than he'd be comfortable to admit. She had to die, and quickly. The look in Blackmore's eyes could freeze one's blood in their veins.
And yet she remained defiant.
"I'm looking forward to seeing you try, Gransurg Blackmore."
That did it.
Narbareck uttered his name on purpose, and her provocation worked.
"You will die here and now."
Blackmore's voice sounded distorted, and as if coming from a large distance.
(...)
In an instant, the whole scenery changed.(...)Instead of in the middle of the throne room, Narbareck and Blackmore were standing atop one of the castle towers.
Glancing around to get a grip of the situation, Narbareck noticed that the crescent Moon was no longer shining in the sky. That alone wouldn't have meant much had she not also noticed that all the stars had disappeared, as well. And the sun was nowhere to be found, either, even though by her calculation the dawn was about to break at any second. In fact, there was nothing to be seen in the pitch black skies, not even the tiniest cloud or a speck of light.
It was the vampire lord' turn to grin cruelly now, as Narbareck looked around with a puzzled look in her eyes.
"So... this is your power, eh, Blackmore?" she said, clutching her briefcase tighter, and looking at the charcoal black sky above.
A familiar miasma had started to fill the air around her, only this time it was much more suffocating. The invisible toxic fog was so dense that she could practically feel it on her skin. A slight pain in her chest alerted her to her heart's ever stronger and faster beating.
The Lord of the Black Wing shot her a sadistic and gleeful grin, enjoying the sight of Narbareck's helplessness.
"Yes. Welcome, my lady, to Nevermore," Blackmore said, and waved his hand at the sky.
Suddenly the heavens moved.
Narbareck looked up and saw that there was a massive flock of black birds swirling above the castle. They seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and their numbers were increasing by the hundreds with each passing second. The perfectly synchronised movements of the flock left Narbareck with an impression that it was all one single and huge organism.
"Impressive," she said, taking a step back away from Blackmore.
Her movement did not escape the vampire's attention.
"Are you thinking of running away?"
"Of course not," she replied, taking another step back to secure the distance between herself and Black Wing.
"There is no escape, you know? You will die here."
"I'd very much prefer to live, actually."
"Even now, you insist on being insolent... I assure you that you'll pay for it."
"Well, I'm not seeing you doing anything yet. Are you all talk, Blackmore?"
She took yet another step back. Now, she had a good distance, she assessed.
"Be careful, Narbareck. Do you really crave death so much? Because..." he said, pointing towards the swirling flock above them, "the birds dancing in my sky are vicious only to the dead."
As he uttered those words, the toxic miasma started to suffocate Narbareck. Her sight got blurry, and her limbs felt numb.
She fell onto her knees, pressing her silver briefcase against her chest. Through the creeping darkness came Blackmore's voice, freezing the blood in her veins:
"Time to die."
Looking up, she could hear the gigantic flock of birds quickly descending towards her, the deafening flapping of their wings making it unable for her to hear her own thoughts.
Death was coming for her. It was only seconds away.
But she would not just give in. Not without a fight.
"No."
She laid her briefcase in front of her and opened it.
Before her was her last weapon, and her last hope. A black book.
She hurriedly pushed the case aside and put the book in front of her. Blackmore saw it, and started chuckling:
"A Bible? I think it's a little too late for prayers, don't you think?"
She paid no heed to the demonic vampire, and flipped through the pages of the bible in frenzy. It was a race with time, as the menacing black cloud crept closer and closer, inch by inch. The noise of the wings grew louder, but she removed her mind from the outside world as much as she could, focused only on finding the right page.
Finally, near the very end of the book, she found the passage she was looking for.
"I thought you didn't believe in God. And in any case, God will not help you now," Blackmore said with a sneer.
It suddenly brought a grin to Narbareck's face; she looked up at the vampire, her eyes glowing in the darkness, and her lips curled into a twisted smile.
"It is not God's help that I'm seeking."
Blackmore stepped back, shocked by the expression of her face, which in turn filled her heart with sadistic glee. She turned her eyes back to the pages of the book.
Indeed, as death crept nearer, Narbareck didn't turn to God for help. It was not His grace that she could save her now. Her salvation lay in this, most powerful, and the most unholy weapon that the Church possessed.
Alien Stomach World.
A Holy Scripture made out of a defeated vampire's innards.
The ultimate weapon against the Dead Apostles.
Narbareck traced down the page to find her passage.
As the roar of Blackmore's army came within a few yards of her, she began reciting her chant:
"The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: 'The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.' "
As the holy words of the Apocalypse rolled over her tongue, there was a bright flash of light radiating from the black Bible. It spread through the floor, down the walls of the tower, and further out, eventually engulfing the entirety of the castle like a spider's web.
The blue glow was dispelling the darkness of death.
Blackmore's eyes widened in terror; he knew he had to stop Narbareck, to prevent her from reading the rest of passage. He didn't know what exactly would happen if she finished reading it, but he had a strong feeling that the result would be disastrous for him.
And yet, he felt completely paralyzed, and could do nothing.
Narbareck continued to read, her left hand spread across the Bible, and her right clutching the black cross on her chest:
"Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant"
Earth started to shake, and the black heavens began crumbling.
Blackmore was petrified with horror as his world, his mighty Reality Marble, began to collapse.
He turned to Narbareck, who read out the last sentence:
"And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a great hailstorm."
She raised her head, and locked her gaze with Blackmore's. Her eyes were shining with fire of the pits of hell. She grinned one last time, and screamed from the top of her lungs:
"AMEN!"
And with that, the world around them disintegrated.
The cloud of black birds was swallowed by a pillar of blinding light that rose from the black book. A hailstorm of fire brought the dark heavens tumbling down onto the castle.
An earthquake split the hill beneath it into two, and within seconds the bottomless abyss swallowed the great fortress, along with Blackmore and Narbareck.
(...)
Seconds later, the two were back in the castle's throne room.
While Narbareck expected to land into a hostile environment, with Kotomine already killed by the remaining vampires, everyone was in the exact same place as before they left, making her realize that all the events that transpired in Nevermore had in the real world occurred within a fraction of a second.
As far as the outsiders were concerned, the two probably never even left.
While she remained on alert and ready to react to the slightest sign of danger, it turned out that there was no need for it.
The entire court remained silent and motionless when the two reappeared in the normal world, and Narbareck managed to put the Alien Stomach World back into the briefcase without anyone noticing it. She rose to her feet, calmed her breathing a bit, and finally looked up to see what had happened to Blackmore.
As soon as she saw him, she realised why the rest of the people present were so quiet and seemingly paralyzed.
The Holy Scripture hadn't just obliterated Blackmore's Reality Marble; it also directly injured the vampire. While Narbareck, the wielder of the Scripture, returned without a scratch, Blackmore was not in very good condition.
He looked like he had just been run over by a truck; collapsed on the floor, full of bruises, with a small trail of blood coming out of his mouth. He was barely conscious, and in no condition to even stand up on his own, let alone fight. It was a total victory for Narbareck.
However, there were vampires there who did not plan on letting her get away with it.
"Men, to arms!" one of the armed vampires said, drawing his sword.
Several other vampires joined him, pointing their spears at Narbareck.
But not all of them.
"Now," she said, looking at a vampire who was standing behind the eager captain calling for action.
The vampire nodded and sprang into motion - he drew his sword and stabbed the leader of the guards in the back. Other guards, who had not yet answered their captain's call to arms, took this as their queue and suddenly sneaked behind the backs of their comrades who were loyal to Blackmore and slaughtered them, cutting their throats or stabbing them through their chests.
Kirei and the rest of the vampire court could not believe their eyes; the traitorous guardsmen, whose leader had been cooperating with Narbareck, executed a coup in a split second. They threw the bleeding bodies of their comrades onto the ground and the corpses quickly turned into ashes, leaving only empty armour and weapons behind them.
The whole thing played out so fast that most of the people present were left with their eyes and mouths opened wide while their brains processed the things that had just happened.
While shock still reigned, Narbareck took the opportunity and approached the leader of the traitors:
"It is done. You're the head of the coven now, and Blackmore is ours. With that, our deal is fulfilled."
"Yes."
"We'll be taking Blackmore with us now. I trust we won't be having any trouble on our way back."
"Of course not. I give you my word."
"Hm..."
Narbareck turned away from her conspirator, one who had been supplying the Burial Agency with information about Blackmore for the past year, with a look full of mixed feelings; she would like nothing better than to slaughter them all now – and she could do it, albeit surprise would be crucial – but she recognised the strategic benefits of having someone loyal and dependent on you in charge of what was still one of the greatest covens in Europe.
She walked over to Kirei, who was still in a state of shock after seeing a Dead Apostle Ancestor utterly defeated and then betrayed, all within a few seconds. She snapped her fingers before him to bring him back to Earth.
"Listen, time for you to put that thing in your case to good use; go over there and secure Blackmore. We'll be taking him with us to the Vatican."
Kirei obeyed her without a word.
He approached the battered and barely awake Ancestor, and the remaining vampires cleared his path. He kneeled by Blackmore's side, opened the briefcase, and took out the relic hidden inside.
The Relic that Narbareck had requested from the Vatican was a holy shroud – the crimson red Shroud of Martin.
Its special ability was to seal magical powers of the user, and generally act as a 'lid' for all things pertaining to magic, and it was for this reason that Narbareck had Kirei bring it along. While the Shroud alone wouldn't be nearly enough to contain the power of an Ancestor ( especially one as strong as Black Wing ), in his current weakened condition Blackmore had no strength to resist the effects of the Shroud.
This would suppress his Curse of Restoration for a while, and allow the Church to transport him back to the Vatican; once there they could easily seal him in appropriate premises.
Kirei wrapped the vampire from head to toe, except for his wings, and with that the two were good to go.
However, just then, the gates of the throne room swung open.
A third party had appeared in the castle – a group of men clad in black, lead by a young girl.
