The Count stalked towards the Maerrocholith, noting the way the thin lips pulled back, revealing the doubled set of sharp teeth. A thorough inspection nearly a century ago had revealed that there were in fact a second set of jaws to go along with the second row of teeth, a discovery that had almost cost him a finger. He bared his own teeth, though there were far fewer than the Maerrocholith possessed. Sixty fewer, if the one that he'd examined had been typical for the species… perhaps some other time he would need to make a more involved study, with multiple specimens. A time when he did not need to explain the reasons to leave his frog alone.
"You stand between me and the vun who has threatened my frog. I regret to say that you vill die for this," he addressed the Maerrocholith, one hand raising in preparation. He expected the demon to attack him as soon as the words left his mouth. A lunge, perhaps a swipe with the long arm with the sharp claws, accompanied by a snap of the jaws if it passed close enough…
The chittering noises accompanying the lunge were something that he had learned was a rather rude bit of profanity that did not precisely translate, similar to an accusation that one's mother had copulated with scavenger fish. The talons were splayed wide in an effort to increase the chance that at least one would catch him, and to spread the damage across most of his body if the hit was solid.
The insult to his mother crushed the half formed thought of letting this demon limp away to spread fear. He twisted under the long taloned fingers, reaching up to snap the demon's wrist as he dodged. The long, spindly limbs of the Maerrocholith gave them an impressive range and reach, but the bones were vulnerable to sideways pressure, and the joins rather fragile when they weren't in the water.
He followed that by kicking the knee backwards, causing the joint to shatter. The demon lurched off balance, a high wail of pain emerging along with a chittering of the inner jaws that may or may not have meant anything beyond 'pain!'
He took advantage of the lost balance to claw across the stomach, his leading hand slashing open the skin and enabling his second to reach in and seize a handful of the internal organs. He could feel the slippery cords of the intestines, and caught hold of a longer, less wobbly length that could have been a blood vessel or a nerve, along with an oval shape just smaller than a lemon. In one motion, he clenched his hand into a fist and pulled.
The Maerrocholith gave a keen and a shudder, and then its legs collapsed. It toppled towards the floor, hands flailing. The legs didn't move, and blood was spreading from the demon's opened stomach in a rapid pattern that whispered of pain, of large plans disrupted, and of the powerful mystical convergence that was more commonly referred to as a Hellmouth.
Stepping to the side, the Count gave a quick glance towards his hand, seeing the coating of the purplish blood, a trailing grey length of nerve, and a half crushed mass of plum colored flesh that was oozing some sort of translucent secretion. "Vell, it appears that I haff found a gland."
He was in no mood for mercy, but the longer he was delayed by this wretched demon, the longer it took before he was ready to destroy the fool that had threatened his frog. That took priority over expressing the full extent of his irritation at this wretched, miserable demon.
Seizing it by the throat, he lifted the Maerrocholith from the floor, his hand, still slick with this wretch's blood, squeezing at the throat. "You insolent, foul-mouthed, bottom-feeding leech… I should rip you to shreds for such an insult to my mother."
Reminding himself that tearing the demon to shreds would take too long, he squeezed harder, until he felt things inside the demon's throat compact and warp out of their proper shapes. There were the subtle sounds of vessels and membranes rupturing, of cartilaginous structures, such as the larynx, and tendons being torn and crushed. The change in the scent of the terror filled huffs of breath emerging from the thin nostrils changed, suggesting that the creature would soon drown as its internal fluids flowed around the wreckage of its throat and into the lungs. Of course, it might bleed to death from the long slashes in the abdomen, or the place where he'd removed the lemon sized gland and the section of nerve…
No matter. He could now move on to destroying the sorcerer who had moved against his frog. Who had dared attack someone under his tutelage and protection. Who had acted to challenge him and his power.
A quick glance showed that Joe was handling himself tolerably well with the lamprey demon. He was evading the blows from its hands, and they appeared to be trading insults. Yes, the young vampire should be able to deal with the demon while he took care of the sorcerer.
Count vonCount stalked towards the doors, pushing them open with a sharp motion. He could feel the cape billowing behind him in a way that had commanded attention for centuries. The room was of a good size for rituals, perhaps fifty feet long and thirty feet wide, without any windows and only the single set of doors. Ugly fluorescent lights hung near the high ceiling, flooding the room with harsh light. The floor had been tiled over with slate, and lines had been drawn on in several hues of pastel chalk, with scrawled markings in Etruscan and Greek. The center piece of the large inscription seemed to be a large block of basalt, set with channels to permit the blood to flow away to the floor. There were shallow channels in the floor, set to take the blood into what looked like a modified Phoenician sign of protection… perhaps the reason that it had been so difficult to scry this location.
Apart from the horrible lighting, it was a very nice ritual chamber.
The sorerer in question was human. The pulsating noise of his heart, the flushing of his cheeks, the fine details of the fear that hung around him like a cloud… everything about him screamed human. Screamed or fear, and mortality and frailty. The man was tall and thin, with blond hair going grey, worn in rumpled curls that just touched the shoulders, a style that had been very popular during America's war with itself, though he lacked the mustache that had frequently accompanied that hairstyle. His frame was draped in a robe of red velvet, though it carried darker speckles from old blood.
Absently, the Count wondered if the older blood stains that speckled the human's robes were a fashion choice or a sign that he was careless with his sacrificial blades. A fashion choice meant a certain type of arrogance and showmanship. Carelessness… well, carelessness with magic spoke of many things, few of them healthy. Unless it was simply that he did not care about such fripperies as his garments when casting magic? No, if that was the reason, why heavy red velvet in California? It was not cold enough to demand the warmth, unless the human had reached that point of age where the body craved warmth… his face did not show such age, but there were many ways for a sorcerer to hide their age from their features.
Glaring at the man, Count vonCount snarled, "You haff made me wery angry."
End part 21.