CHAPTER 5

Shit.

Alice felt her stomach drop to the sea as she approached the island. Poveglia. Rough waters hurled themselves against her small fishing boat, tossing her from side to side (Borrowed, not stolen. She was planning on giving it back). Dark swirling clouds surrounded the tiny island, giving off a dangerous aura. The hairs on her body prickled.

Alice had witch blood in her.

It wasn't a particularly strong connection. She couldn't see the dead or get visions in the middle of the night or use charms. It would have been bloody useful in her career, but noooo, ever since she was a little girl, she could remember catching flashes of things. Sometimes humans, sometimes dragons, and even flying green bunnies.

One day, her school principal found out about her "imagination" and called her father and her siblings to the office for a meeting. The principal had suggested that either she get a therapist, or they put Alice in a mental institution in Siberia.

That's when her father punched out three of his teeth.

Her father would never leave any of his children. Any of his wife's children. But they didn't have money for medication, so Alice continued to see things and just got better at keeping them to herself. Her family seemed to think that she had grown out of her "seeing imaginary friends" stage as her siblings had, but she still could see them.

Alice bristled as her foot sunk into the soil of Poveglia. The soil of ashes and blood and bones.

Everything rushed in like a tidal wave. Poveglia was different. She walked past the murderous doctors that wore bird masks, ignoring their blood-red eyes as they followed her. Screams sizzled through the air. Anybody and everybody suspected to have the Black Plague in Italy died here. Decapitated warriors growled and knocked their bones at her, armor chipped and stained with blood.

Demons grinned at her with gleaming eyes. My, what dark secrets you have. They seemed to say, Come and tell us won't you? We'll help you forget everything... Every little dark secret, every little bit of pain you've ever know.

Alice brushed past them, chanting a stupid nursery rhyme.

She brushed her way past the poison ivy and to the entrance of the asylum. "Damn it," Alice cursed, feeling the nausea that the building emitted. He just had to pick this place. "Bloody bastard." She braced herself and entered the building.

Shit.

Blood everywhere. It was worse than Isabelle's murder. Blood rained from the ceiling and organs, arms and legs tossed around. The stairs were made of skeletons. Children's skeletons. "Fuck." Alice hesitantly started up the stairs. Knowing Him, he'd chosen the hardest place to reach on the island: the bell tower.

Alice felt her skin crawl and the raining blood soaked her. It was still warm.

At the top of the stairs was a hallway. Chains rattled, and patients scream and cried bloody murder, their organs pouring out of their eyes as Alice passed. She walked across broken doors and stuffed dolls. Suddenly, the nursery rhyme didn't seem too effective.

"Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts." She repeated, her heart beating five times then it normally would. But what the hell could ever be happy in a place like this? She thought, jumping out of her skin when a little boy peeked his head out of a doorway.

"MaMMa?" It asked, voice changing pitches from high to low to multiple and then back to normal. "DoV'è IL miO moMma?"

Where, indeed.

Alice turned her back on the little boy, her hairs prickling. She tried not to notice the fact that he looked just like her big brother, Patrick (AN: North Ireland) when he was a child. And she knew that Patrick's eyes weren't pure black.

The black eyed children.

Demons that traveled in packs, usually in the form of siblings. But if he said 'mother', then maybe he meant-! Alice screamed as a teenage girl lashed out at her, clawing and gnashing her teeth at Alice. "È CaGnA! L'hAI uCCisO! L'hAi UCciso! HAI ucciso MIA maDRe!"

Black eyes. Alice jumped back, pulling out her gun on instinct, gears whirring and read to shoot. The other one.

"È CaGnA! L'hAI uCCisO! L'hAi UCciso! HAI ucciso MIA maDRe!" The demon that looked like Patrick and the teenage girl that looked a lot like Patrick's twin sister, Wilma (AN: The Republic of Ireland).

She put away the gun, knowing it would have no effect on the two demons unless the bullets were soaked in holy water or some herb mixture. Don't pay attention to them, Alice remembered, they dig out your darkest secrets and play with you. Don't let them. She pulled out a small vile of holy water from her coat. You never knew when you needed one.

"Tu non sei mia figlia."

Alice froze. She didn't dare turn around. She knew what she would see. A shape-shifter demon could make an exact replica of people, as long as they were dead first and the memory was strong. Alice couldn't bear to see her father. Not like this.

"You're not real." Alice straightened her back. "You're not real. Because you-" She pointed to the shape-shifter without looking, "-are dead. And you two-" She looked at little Patrick and teenage Wilma. "-are a memory."

Alice repeated that in her head, strolling past the three.

They might follow her. They didn't get much prey, with the island being abandoned and the horror stories surrounding the island. Alice couldn't hear them. Of course she couldn't hear them, they didn't have physical properties. Or shadows. Alice clutched the vile of water, knowing that if she turned around for one second, one tiny moment of weakness, her soul would be eaten.

Alice reached another set of stairs after thirty minutes or so. This one was made out of blood dripped organs. "The things I do for my paycheck," Alice growled bitterly and walked up the swirling stairs, ignoring the fact that that she was completely drenched in blood. The squelching noise that the organs made as she went, echoed in her ears.

She reached the bell tower entrance, pissed and blood soaked and scared. "Oi, fucktard." Alice saw him sitting peacefully in his chair. Not drenched, not scared, and drinking tea. Fucking tea.

Lovino Bloody Fucking Vargas, Mafia boss of Italy.

"About damn time you showed up, ragazza." He smirked, amber eyes gleaming with a dark look. "You look like shit."

Translations:

Mamma = Mom.

Dov'è il mio Momma = Where's my Mama?

È cagna! L'hai ucciso! L'hAi ucciso! HAI ucciso mia madre! = You bitch! You killed her! You killed her! YOU killed my mother!

Tu non sei mia figlia = You're not my daughter.

Ragazza = Girl.