Raziel II

Dammit. I had become so careless since the infernal girl had forced her way into my life. How long had it been since I had fed? It had to have been over a day, and she had ruined my one opportunity with the Sarafan dogs. Although that was hardly the only thing she had ruined.

I was positive I would not have taken the hit from the stone golem had it not been for our argument, or the fact that my attention was constantly split between looking out for myself and my burdensome travel companion.

"Joining me again, are you, Raziel?" The booming voice of the omnipresent Elder God greeted me, smugness in his every word. "I warned you that should you return while still choosing to disobey me, that you would never see the material plane again."

Disgust overwhelmed me, as it did each time I took in his many eyes, the slitted pupils focused on me as his squid-like tendrils slithered along the walls of the spectral realm. How had I believed this horrid creature's every word at one point in time? How had I readily become his "Soul Reaver"? He was nothing but a controlling false deity who thrived on chaos and every tragedy that had befallen Nosgoth.

"Your confidence is baffling," I started mockingly, looking around for a soul that might be nearby so I could gain back some strength. "I have escaped you several times since you've closed off the entrances you once gave me. I have no doubt that I will again."

I spotted two wayward souls a short distance away. The monstrous squid tried his best to keep them at bay, but I worked fast and drew them toward me, opening my cowl and drawing in breath. They came quickly to me, nourishing my weak, rotted body, but then nothing more.

I had wanted to ingest several, but knew I was fortunate to have gotten a hold of what I did.

"I see you've become close with Moebius's young protégé. You may refuse to kill Kain at our command, but I promise you that every second you spend with her is another closer to your demise."

"You think me so credulous?" I scoffed, tired of the lies. This was yet another way to manipulate me, but I knew the truth. Vera had slipped from their grasp and they thought me ignorant enough to give her back. "That you believe I would listen to anything you have to offer is laughable."

"You don't know what she is, Raziel. As your gracious previous benefactor, I feel I owe you some helpful advice." His thunderous voice had a ridiculously artificial concern to it. It seemed he was taking acting lessons from his faithful time-streaming servant.

"And as your bitter former puppet, I know never to trust a word out of your lack-of-mouth. I know perfectly well what she is. With the proper training, she will be more powerful than Moebius could ever dream of being. You both must be quaking since she escaped your clutches, as I did not so long ago."

I was more than happy to gloat about derailing their malevolent plans. It felt exhilarating to be creating my own path, one that seemed to terrify the both of them.

"Best to stop your bragging, Raziel." His tone shifted darkly when he realized I would not be swayed by his words. "Who knows how long she will last up there? Do not say I did not warn you."

Though he had blocked off the portals that he had created for me to do his bidding, I had devised a way to escape the spectral realm, should I find a cemetery or body of some sort in the material realm to project into.

I had taken note of the skeletons and bodies in various states of decay that had littered the room of the second trial in case such an occasion were to arise.

It took more energy than I would have liked to force my spirit up to reanimate one of the corpses, but it was a necessary act. I did so with relative ease, and once back in the material realm, I was able to discard the physical shell of the body I had inhabited and return to my wraith self.

A sense of dread immediately came over me. The room was silent — the lack of Vera's persistent chatter a bad sign. I had remained on the material plane long enough to witness her destroy the second-to-last golem with a sweeping blast of ice, screaming profanities confidently all the while. The last thing I had seen was her powers giving out again as I faded back to the Spectral Realm.

However, here laid the remnants of the last golem strewn across the floor, meaning that somehow, she must have been able to defeat it in my absence.

Finally, I noticed her small form splayed out on the opposite side of the room. Surely, if she was dead, her corpse would have been the one I returned from the Spectral Realm from by default, as she would have been the most recently deceased. Though I was grateful not to have experienced something so unpleasant, the thought did little to ease my concern. I crossed over to her body quickly.

I shook her small shoulders, hoping to wake her, but it appeared she was unconscious. I saw the shallow rise and fall of her chest and sighed in relief, just as a snore erupted from her drooling mouth.

She had saved herself from the last creature without my help and without a scratch on her. I felt pride swell within me. She was getting better, slowly but surely, and that squid-like, parasitic false idol knew it. She would continue to be an invaluable asset on the road ahead.

I placed her back on the ground, still uncomfortable with both the intimacy of touch and the heat radiating from her human body. I was not eager to waste more time that could be spent facing Janos, but humans were weak creatures, and I understood her need for rest, even if it was an inconvenience. The girl had come to me in the middle of the night and we had to have been at this for hours, with her new powers sapping from her untrained body.

Utilizing the time I knew I had, the next few hours were spent trying to divine the meaning behind the signs on the three doors in vain, waiting for Vera to come to. I did not want to risk going in the wrong direction by choosing the wrong door. I had to avoid another trip to the Spectral Realm at all costs.

Clearly, there was some sort of riddle at work, but I could not yet ascertain the answer.

The girl awoke with a start, sitting up quickly and then hopping to her feet upon seeing me. "Raz, you're back!" she started excitedly, then covered it with a scowl. "You know, you got a lotta nerve coming back AFTER I did all the work! I know you're mad at me or whatever, but that was NOT left me for dead back there!"

I had meant to tell her that had it not been for me, she would have met her end by the enchanted cluster of rocks who had held her by the ankle, but her words stopped me, as the mystery of the puzzle clicked in my brain.

"That's it!" I ran quickly to the stairs, jumping over pieces of rock and bone that littered the ground, "The signs on these doors say Four dead. There were four tombstones. The answer must be the door on the left. Left for dead."

"Oh, I'm a genius!" the sorceress gloated, stumbling over the rubble on the ground to join me at the top of the stairs. Her hands lit up effortlessly to blast the locked door open, but then she stopped, an expression of anger and, if I was not mistaken, even a small amount of hurt crossing her face. "Are you sure you wanna keep going with the most obnoxious woman you've ever met?" she exaggeratedly air-quoted, doing a poor imitation of my voice.

I sighed heavily. I should have known the argument wasn't over. "I will say this only once, so do not ask me to repeat it," I snapped sternly, and as quickly and flatly as I could said, "Truthfully, your antics are occasionally a welcome reprieve from my unyielding inner dialog."

"I thought so!" she broke out into a large smile. "I don't really know what any of that means, but you REALLY didn't wanna say it so I'm sure it's good! So anyway, where the heck did you go back there?! If you can teleport after making us do all of this, you're a real jerk!"

"I'm sure with practice, teleportation will join your ever-growing list of abilities, but it's not something of which I am capable." I waved away her asinine theory, unsure of where to begin.

There was so much to explain. She seemed to have grasped the information about The Pillars, albeit while impassioned about the existence of just about everything except humans. I would have to keep things as simple as possible and hope she did not interrupt too frequently.

"If you were paying attention earlier, you may remember that vampires burn when water touches their skin, which is why when Kain ordered my execution, he chose to have me thrown into the abyss. Not only would it do the job nicely, but all evidence of my surpassing my master would be erased from history."

No matter how many times I told the story, I could not keep the bitterness from my tone. Kain's murderous act would always fill me with blind rage, and ignoring that rage to face a common enemy as well as concede that perhaps the situation was more complicated than it seemed was one of the most difficult things I'd ever had to do.

"Kain seems like such a petty bitch…" the girl muttered, her gaze shifting to my tattered wings. I had caught her eyes flicker to them often since I had used them to glide over the stairway. If they awed her so even now, I could only imagine how she would have marvelled at seeing them in their prime. I myself had hardly had the time to appreciate my glorious, bat-like wings before Kain had broken them and sent me to my destruction.

"This is not about Kain, no matter what he maintains," I said sharply, returning her focus back to my account. "When I finally reached the bottom of the abyss, I had been dead for years. I awoke in a place called the Spectral Realm in this ghastly form to a voice telling me that I had been reborn. This squid-like creature claiming responsibility for my resurrection called himself the Elder God. I discovered the Spectral Realm is below the Material Realm, which is where we are now. It is essentially the same physically, but it contains the souls of those that are dead, like me."

"So the Spectral Realm is just like here only...super, extra, ultra haunted?"

I knew to ignore her nonsensical additions and continued on. "The Elder God instructed me to feed off my anger and thirst for vengeance against Kain and my brothers. The more I killed, the more I kept his Wheel of Life turning. Anger wasn't the only thing I was feeding off of..." I paused, looking away from her to avoid another look of fear tinged with disgust like I had received when I mentioned killing my brothers. "The Elder God had raised me from death with a hunger for souls. If I go for too long without consuming them, I phase from the material realm and end in the spectral realm with him again. This is what happened earlier."

"Woah..." I heard her exhale deeply, " I have so many questions! What do souls taste like? Do you know the names of the souls you eat? Did you eat my Grandma Muriel after she died last year? Is the Elder God, like, ACTUALLY a God? Cuz I feel like Gods don't look like giant squids?! I mean, my only reference point is Disney's Hercules and I don't THINK anyone in that movie looked like an octopus, but it has been a while since I saw it…"

"That is something I doubt with each new piece of information I acquire," I said, replying to the least foolish of her questions. "Everything that I've been led to believe makes me suspect that I was going to be revived one way or another. There are prophecies at work."

There was so much I did not know, like what the prophecies fully entailed, I and was hoping beyond hope that Janos could give me the information that would gain me the upper hand for once.

"Nor do I know how much power the squid actually has. He is stationary in the Spectral Realm, which is why he relies on those he manipulates to carry out his wishes. Moebius is his mouthpiece on the Material Realm. I was his pawn that could traverse between realms. However, when I refused to kill Kain, he and Moebius became enraged. They must be incapable of killing Kain themselves, judging by their relentless demands for his demise."

"Moebius would be BFFs with a squid." Vera's confused and scrunched face returned as she tried yet again to process the information I provided. "Does that make you and Kain friends now or something?"

I scoffed at her ridiculous question, "Far from it. He has his own agenda. If it should suit me in the future, I won't hesitate to end his life. I just need time to gather more information and discover my destiny."

I had originally thought Kain selfish when he refused to sacrifice himself to restore The Pillars, but had since learned it wasn't so simple. Kain was the last of the vampires, and Moebius and the Elder God desperately wanted them eradicated from existence. Not that that made Kain anywhere near a saint. Not only had he had his most loyal lieutenant murdered in cold blood, but the madness from the previous Circle of Nine still ravaged his brain.

"Do ya think there's a prophecy about how awesome I am?" The girl had clearly reached her limit for critical thought, lost in her reverie as she ran her fingers through her hair, catching it on various knots and yanking them out unceremoniously.

"I doubt it. My working theory is that Moebius brought you here in a desperate attempt to change the future. I am guessing he saw something he did not like and brought you in to try and change the outcome."

I hoped I was right. As much as I had dismissed the Elder God's warning, I knew that Vera's mysterious presence was going to affect every person she interacted with ― for better or worse.

"Oh, I'll change the outcome alright. I'm gonna kick his wrinkly butt." She smirked up at me, and then I saw her attention on my cowl. "Seriously, what do souls taste like? I'm imagining cotton candy for some reason. Is it cotton candy?"

"Please..." I pinched the bridge of my nose in irritation. "We need to move onward."

"Fine, but I'm gonna assume the answer is yes. Alley-OOP!" She threw her palms out, which glowed a dark fuchsia, and blasted the door open.

Instead of torches on the wall of this room, there were many golden candelabra, all standing taller than the girl and some even taller than myself. They provided flickering light and a sinister tone in the small chamber. Also gold was the only other item sitting in the center of the room ― a sacrificial basin.

"I was afraid of this..." I sighed as we walked up to it together. The many candles around us flickered ominously, enchanted to burn forever and never melt.

"Uhhh, you make fun of me for being afraid of stairs when you're afraid of a bowl?!" the sorceress's eyebrows rose judgmentally. "I could eat like THREE whole boxes of Captain Crunch outta this baby!"

"It's not a 'bowl,' Vera, it's a blood basin," I explained in irritation. She blinked cluelessly. "For sacrifices." She blinked again. "The only way to go forward is to provide it with blood," I snapped, curious as to how much blood it would need before allowing us to progress.

"NOT IT!" the young girl yelled, her index finger impetuously flying to her nose in another odd gesture.

The force of her elbow bumped one of the candlesticks, which wobbled dangerously. She reached out and grabbed on to steady it with both hands, fortunate that she was short enough that her waist-length hair did not go up in flames. She smirked when she had averted the disaster, as if it was all intentional.

"I believe I just got done telling you how very dead I am, which means I have no blood to provide for this next task. So, you are it," I sighed again, knowing this would undoubtedly take a while with her flair for the dramatics.

"UGH! That's the first time I've been fast enough to win that game, too," she pouted, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared into the bowl curiously. "But hey, can't I just poof blood into this thing with my powers?"

"Blood isn't something that can be summoned. It's a very powerful ingredient for those with and without powers. It can help those without your gifts create spells, seals, and basic lines of defense. Small balls of fire and the like. If you were to use blood to cast a specific spell, it would be all the more powerful. Ironically, Moebius condemns vampires for draining blood, when I'm all but positive he and his men capture the vampires and drain their blood to help with those very incantations."

She stiffened, starting to blanch, "O-okay, well then I guess I'll try to summon a knife or something cuz I don't think an apple from my backpack is gonna cut it...Get it? CUT it? Since we're slicing and dicing me like deli meat?" Her smile was pained, but she clearly could not resist making the poor joke regardless of the situation at hand.

"You are not capable of such things," I shook my head impatiently, realizing that the only way to move forward would be to use the weapons I had at my disposal. I looked down at my clawed hands in disgust, knowing what had to be done.

"Hey, I'm a lot stronger than you give me credit for!" she exploded, rounding on me and poking a finger into my chest. "You shoulda seen how I took out that last stone dude! All I had to do was POINT at him and he went DOWN!" Here, she faltered, her eyes flickering to the ground before returning to me and doubling down, "Yeah, I passed out afterward, but sometimes being a badass is exhausting, okay?!"

"It has nothing to do with power," I said, taking a small step away from her to avoid her finger jabs, "Making something appear requires a mastery of the item you wish to summon. You lack an observant eye, and you would have to meticulously know the details of a knife before bringing it into fruition."

"I'll show YOU observant, Mr. Know-It-All!" She screwed up her face and squeezed her eyes shut, her cheeks reddening. After mere seconds, she gave up, letting out the breath she was holding. "Fine — I can't do it. So what the heck are we going to use to cut me open?"

I clenched my grotesque claws, resolute in my decision. Before she could protest, I roughly took her hand in mine, angled it over the basin, and flipped it so her palm was facing upward. She looked up at me, sapphire eyes wide, managing to pale even more.

With my other hand, I clamped down on her small wrist so she couldn't draw back. "I'll be making a small incision at the center of your palm, alright?"

She swallowed hard, then nodded once, a determined look on her face, though I could feel her shaking in trepidation. "Fine, just don't enjoy it too much."

"No promises." I made a quick slit into her hand, then tilted it sideways so that the steady stream of blood would run directly into the basin.

"SON OF A SHIT!" the girl erupted, louder than I had ever heard her, as she tried to yank her hand back, but I'd expected as much. My grip was firm. It was difficult to tell just how much blood she was losing, as the bowl was enchanted to greedily absorb every drop that touched its surface.

I would have to time it so that her wound would not be open long. If I thought she were in danger of losing an excess of blood, I could always go back into Uschtenheim and find an animal that we could use instead. It was not ideal, but Janos would still be at the mountain's top after all of this was said and done. Vera would not be if I was not careful.

Surely this was a way to provide sustenance to the ancient vampire, who struggled to leave his fortress and feed with all of Nosgoth seeking his demise.

"Classy," I admonished, adjusting my hand so that I could apply pressure to her wound in an effort to get the blood out faster. She winced, her knees buckling a little in pain. "I do not think I have ever come across someone less lady-like."

"Oh, sorry MY SWEARS offended the dude that KILLED HIS BROTHERS," she rolled her eyes, using her other hand to point at her wounded palm. "Ya know, it's MY blood that's helping us get farther; you could AT LEAST thank me!"

"Thank you," I said shortly, dropping her hand as soon as we heard the lock on the door click. "Best not to try and heal yourself. You'll need all your strength in case we have to fight Janos."

"But it won't stop," she whined, cradling her oozing hand with a frown.

I took off my cowl so I could use it to fashion a makeshift bandage, and noticed for the first time how dirty and stiff it was from the years of death and grime it had seen. I hesitated briefly, embarrassed by the state of it, but the girl's still-bleeding palm needed covering.

I ripped a small strip of the dirty fabric off from the end and threw the rest back over my shoulder, returning to her side to wrap her hand up. She flinched a little at first when I came at her with my claws again.

It was not a new feeling for me to have this revulsion at my own monstrous appearance. However, this time, it was accompanied by a foreign pang of sadness.

Humans and vampires alike had reacted in disgust and fear upon viewing my rotting corpse, but there had been moments I shared with this overconfident, absurd little being that I briefly forgot I was an aberration ― usually, due to marveling at her flagrant stupidity.

The sadness immediately flared to indignation. I reminded myself that I did not care about the opinion of this insignificant, thickheaded woman, and had no reason to experience such a sentiment.

When I had roughly finished tying the tight knot on the top of her hand, I drew back a great distance and returned my cowl to its rightful place over my face.

"Oh, and thank you too, Nurse Raz," she said grudgingly as she turned her hand over to inspect my handiwork. "I never noticed you had straight-up CLAWS before. Crazy!"

The fear with which she had gazed upon them earlier had subsided and given way to that bright-eyed wonder that often came across her face.

"Perhaps you may remember someone correctly pointing out your lack of observation skills." I mockingly reminded her, pushing open the door before me.

"Are you SURE you can't bleed? Cuz I got a fist that's NOT cut up that I could hit you with if you wanna test it out!" she glowered, raising up the hand that was not bandaged.

I was equally disappointed and relieved that the bloodletting had not affected her boisterous spirit.