I dedicate this fanfiction to my girlfriend and all my readers, reviewers and the beta reader wallaceb.
CHAPTER 33 - What defines a monster - part 2
"You said summoning ritual?" Dracula asked looking confused, "We will not have to do an exorcism?"
Victoria made a sign with her hand to call the vampire next to her. For a moment he hesitated, but finally approached her, with a foot he pushed the dagger away and only then leaned down to her level.
The huntress began to whisper to the vampire her plan in a voice low enough not to be heard by Jonathan, who made the job even easier by continuing to shake himself.
"I have exorcised many possessed people in my lifetime. This ritual is long and tiring both for those who must be freed and for exorcists; moreover the evil spirit has plenty of time to maim both the soul and the body before being destroyed. You are right to say that few survive... But since we have a sample of the original blood of that fiend-" Victoria was interrupted by the glare that Drac shot her when she named his daughter "fiend", but then she continued. "If we make a summoning ritual to call that spirit it will not be able to teleport and at that point we can exorcise him without it harming the boy."
"It's a ridiculous idea..." Drac cut her short contemptuously, then asked with falsely disinterested curiosity, "How many times has it worked?"
"Five times out of seven... seven out of seven for the possessed."
There was a moment of silence.
"And what happened twice?" The count asked, insecure about wanting to really listen to the answer.
"Once time the spirit that we released managed to get to the "tribute" and the other time it was more powerful than my mates imagined and massacred them all before being destroyed; only one survived, the ex-possessed... Me..."
"Tribute? Yeah, only if you have enshrined a pact with a spirit can you can force him to reach you if you invoke it. I'm afraid to know what you offered to make sure that they didn't refuse your summon..." Drac commented in a serious tone.
Victoria lowered her gaze before answering:
"Young virgin girls."
Dracula stood up, ran his hands through his hair in anger and disbelief to human cruelty.
"At least they were aware of the risks?" He began to grumble, and then turned back to her.
"Or you kidnapped them and listened to their cries of terror when a specter was trying to devour them alive?!" The tone of the vampire went up until yelling, and seemed to have no fear of being heard by Jonathan.
Victoria shut herself even more. She was silent as the vampire stared at her angrily, hoping for a negative answer, hoping to find a shred of humanity in the hearts of humans themselves, humanity that this silence confirmed to be dead.
"You humans disgust me, it's fortunate that your life is short and without magic." He said, and then took the book.
"Ritual of evocation without blood pact." He ordered gently turning to the ancient book whose cover slowly opened two sleepy eyes and finally began to peel by itself to reach the desired page.
Dracula cleared his throat and began to read:
"Let's see if this is... ingredients... process... notes, well... effective ritual to summon objects, spirits and magical creatures of all shapes and sizes. 1) Warning: To avoid disappointment check around the altar to verify there is enough space to contain the Summon..."
"Drac... there are people here who are bleeding to death, can you hurry, please?" Victoria interrupted the vampire; her voice was so tired that the last words were barely audible.
"Do not interrupt me; otherwise I'll lose the thread!" He replied, angry, then continued reading, "2) Warning: if you try to summon a spirit not firmly attached to a body and/or to an item the aforementioned spirit might separate from it damaging and/or destroying that which housed it. Here it is! But I don't like the "damaging and/or destroying that which housed it"..."
"At last!" Victoria commented deriding the vampire who turned and glared at her before answering with annoyed tone:
"I want to see you in my condition..."
"I would have already finished because I can do it by heart." Victoria replied, continuing to mock the Count, who, feeling wounded pride counterattacked by the imitating the huntress and answered with a shrill and acute voice typical of petulant women like Eunice, absolutely not in line with the masculine tone of Victoria:
"Hello everyone, my name is Victoria and I am such a good girl, I know all the potions by heart since I am the descendant of the greatest professor of the occult and I always do my homework blah, blah, blah!"
Victoria chuckled because of the madness crisis of the vampire, but she didn't fail to respond:
"You said it again..."
"What?" The vampire asked returning to an apparently normal state of mind.
"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Dracula muttered, angrily, waving his arms above his head like one of those wacky-waving-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man, then remembering the limited time available, he came back into position for prepare the potion.
"Now stop wasting my time with your nonsense and let me concentrate." The vampire grumbled, and then continued:
"Ingredients: blue moth wings powder." He said as he took the grinder for spices and held it above the chalice; then he began to grind and from it came a dark blue powder.
Meanwhile, the half vampire began to shake, so as to get rid of the bandages that were covering his mouth.
"No... You will not do it... I cannot allow you to exorcise me!" Jonathan yelled, threatening, but it was clear that he was just trying to mask his fear.
"And instead I'll do it..." Dracula replied smirking, and then continued with his chores.
Mica flour. And he grinded again, but this time there came a brilliant white powder, and then he took the cruet.
"No, you will not." The boy repeated, this time self-assured
"Dracula, I'm afraid that this time the guy is serious..." Victoria said with playful voice.
Intrigued Drac rolled his eyes at her, noticed that she had a sarcastic smile on her face and after she looked at him for a moment she slightly raised a hand to indicate something in front of her. The vampire turned in the direction of what she pointed, and his calm expression collapsed in an instant.
Jonathan was sitting on the gurney; he was bent over holding his elbows on his legs and his chin on his fists.
All the big straps covered with anti-spell runes were open.
His evil eyes were fixed on the red narrowed girl. Wounded.
For a moment no one moved...
For a moment the air was so tense that it not even a knife could cut it...
A moment of calm before the inevitable storm...
Jonathan raised his head slightly to allow his hands to gesture slightly as he began to speak:
"I guess none of you were aware of my skills as a magician of the ropes when I was human? I generally wriggle from the ropes and I destroyed everything that was within ten yards around me, but I was doing well..."
Drac and Victoria made a face palm disheartened.
"You handle him, alright?" The vampire suggested turning to the red head girl, who widened her eyes terrified:
"But the only two neurons in your brain just did a frontal crash?!"
"Are you or are you not the greatest hunter in the world?" Dracula defuses the situation.
"But, are you serious?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm hurt, unarmed and I don't have the strength to get up myself, what should I do?!" She cried hysterically, "And then if he bites me, you will never turn him back to a human!" She continued in an even more shrill voice, similar to Eunice's.
The thick red hair girl for a moment hoped for help from the vampire, but soon she realized that she would have to fend for herself.
"I'm really fucked now..." She sighed, lowering her head, dejected.
"Watch your language; I will not accept such rudeness in my hotel." Drac scolded her, "However you invent something while I finish the preparations. For now, take this."
Having said this, he threw her the empty jar that she caught and went back to work.
"And what do I do with th-"
But Victoria was interrupted abruptly by Jonathan who was bearing down on her. Fortunately, good hunter reflexes allowed her to launch a kick, not very strong, but well-targeted to his face, against which the guy impacted with all the speed of his momentum, so as to throw him to the mat.
Unfortunately the thirst of the half vampire prevented him from feeling fatigue and pain, so he quickly got up and jumped against Victoria who this time was too exhausted to counterattack him, but she managed to take Jonathan by the neck with one hand locking him before he could bite her.
"Come on, you're not doing so bad." Drac exclaimed, without even a glance at the girl in trouble who answered sarcastically:
"You think so?"
But Dracula seemed not to listen to her; in fact he was intent to continue the preparation of the potion, careless of the noise and roar of the boy.
"Basilisk's milk." The count ordered in a quiet voice then from the metal cruet in his hand he poured a white liquid with red and yellow pearly reflections.
Victoria saw the scene, but she could not distract herself for long because the boy, stronger than her due to his new powers, was getting dangerously closer to her.
"Is it possible that..." She thought, then with her free hand she took the jar, uncorked it and pressed it against the face of Jonathan shouting:
"Aconitum!"
The jar was filled with purple dried flowers and in a moment Jonathan jumped off and walked away a few feet coughing heavily, so as to kneel on the floor.
Victoria stood up sliding on the wall to help herself, and then looked at the half vampire who was breathing heavily and gave a satisfied smile. She turned to Dracula to brag, but she found him slumped on the floor in agony.
"Put that thing away immediately!" The vampire tried to shout, but his voice was choked, "Coff, coff, coff... it's even worse than garlic!"
But Victoria put the jar on the floor and limped quickly to take the cruet from the hands of the Count.
"Unicorn's blood!"
"Nooo! Coff, coff, coff... The unicorn blood is rare and precious, I have very little!"
Victoria looked at him for a moment, and then poured the silvery liquid on her wound, which was absorbed by the skin like water by parched land, healing her and even restoring her strength.
"Incredible!" She exclaimed, euphoric "Much better than dittany essence that I usually use!"
Then she returned with her eyes on Drac and noticed that his pale skin was becoming a not too healthy purple color...
"Maybe I should get rid of these flowers..."
That said she covered the jar, from which the contents vanished, and set it beside the chalice, finally she stretched her muscles waiting for the next battle.
"You wasted my precious unicorn blood... you'll pay for that..." The vampire said in an exhausted voice while he got up.
"Nah... What were you doing with it? The energy of a sacred creature like a unicorn burns the spirit of demonic monsters! "
Then she turned to check on Jonathan, he was rising, so she walked to the bed and took the IV pole with and hit the boy in the nape of the neck blocking his head on the floor stuck between the legs of the rolling wheels.
"Dracula, hurry up, I don't know how I'll be able to hold him!"
"Oh, yes... edelweiss honey!" And he tilted the cruet, but nothing came out.
Dracula, why did you not call that ingredient from the jar? How does the honey to come out of the long narrow spout?" Victoria advised, but the Count was busy hitting the cruet in the hope of making something out, he replied loudly:
"Mind your own business!"
But at the end his perseverance he was rewarded with a thin drizzle of honey that spilled into the chalice.
Finally he picked up the jar and ordered:
"Black Rose Petals... I hope I have enough in stock..." he opened it, took a handful of blacks dried petals, dropped them into the chalice and immediately he pulled his arm back wrapping himself in his mantle.
There was a small bang and a bright scarlet thick smoke filled the room.
Jonathan took advantage of the moment of distraction to push the IV pole against Victoria who was hit in her stomach and fell on the floor. The boy grabbed her arm and tried to bite it, but she hit him with a powerful uppercut to his chin which broke a canine tooth and forced him to retreat, but it was not long before he recovered and tried a new attack.
Yes, I know, I said that I would try to publish the entire chapter without further divisions, but my girlfriend had the day off to go to Lucca-comics (the third largest comic book fair in the world) and therefore I'm busy to finish the cosplay of Dracula, that I had left incomplete because my girlfriend was supposed to work.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter; I'll publish the next on Halloween.
I would recommend you to review!
See you soon!