A/N: This is a revised version of chapter 3. Hope you enjoy. Disclaimer: I do not own Raziel. I only own Val and the other characters I mentioned in the previous chapter who are not present in this chapter.
A/N: Recap of chapter 2. If you were too lazy to read the last chapter, it pretty much tells the history of Val and the reason why she is currently public enemy number 1 to all vampires. In an attempt to defend herself, she summons the Demon Gamin. However, instead of helping her, he pulls Val into a dimensional vortex which transports her to Nosgoth. He leaves her with a message telling her to return his love and not to come back without her. And without any further ado, I give you Chapter 3: Healer by day, sadist by night.

Chapter 3: Healer by day, sadist by night

Val looked up from where she had fallen. She was in her full bestial form. Everything was dark but it didn't matter. She could see quite well in the dark. And in the darkness she saw a bright shining object on the ground. She moved closer to examine it and realized that it was a core stone suspended in the middle of four discs and all encased within a ball of glass. It was the Conduit. It had been sucked in along with her. She took it up and placed it inside her bag.

It was raining slightly. There was a stone wall with a picture of a man. There were also some spikes positioned on a wooden wheel-like structure. Val stared at the picture until she heard some strange noises behind her. She looked back to see five green zombie-like creatures slowly making their way towards her.

"Vampires?" Val cried out when she recognized their scent.

But the creatures didn't look like vampires. They looked like cannibalistic zombies straight from an old horror movie.

"First Vampires, now Zombies! Why does everyone want to kill me?" Val shouted as she readied her Hydro Hyper Blaster 9000, pleased that she thought of hiding it under her cloak along with her bag. However, it was quite cumbersome to be holding a water gun in her bestial form so she became human again.

Val began to shoot like mad. The water seared the scraggly green beasts. In a few seconds, the creatures began to circle one another as though on fire. They were even beginning to smolder.

'That's strange,' Val thought. 'These things seem to be more vulnerable to holy water than usual vampires. But then again, it's not like they are the usual vampires. This could be useful. Hell! What am I saying? This will be very, very useful, indeed.'

Before long, each and every one of those zombie-esque creatures was sprawled upon the ground… dead. An evil grin was concealed beneath the hood of Val's robe. She had never actually killed vampires before and she never thought for a moment that the thrill of victory was greater than anything else she had ever imagined. At once she was overcome by an intense sense of enlightenment and at the same time… malice, greed, avarice, revenge, hunger and blood thirst. Where were these emotions all coming from? It all seemed to happen so fast. She never meant to kill them. It was all just by accident. But she killed them nonetheless and she wanted more. More death, more despair, more cries of anguish and torment, more of everything.

Not only that, she also wanted a prize; a booty of some sort. And what better spoil of victory was there than to rip out the fangs of a slain vampire. She vaguely remembered her siblings doing this back home, when she was still a child. However, the vampire was normally still alive.

She confidently opened the vampire's dead mouth, knowing that should it come alive again, she was more than equipped to deal with it. Val gripped hard on the canines and yanked with all her might. They came out with no trouble at all. Val took them in her trembling hands and placed them in the side pocket of her bag. Plucking out a vampire's fangs was considered to be the most humiliating insult one could ever do to a vampire and her siblings had a large collection indeed.

'I should do this more often,' she mused.

Intent on finding more vampires… or whatever those things were, Val hopped off the ledge and a few more till she finally reached the bottom level. As soon as her feet touched the ground she immediately sensed she was not alone. She looked around and saw a human carrying a crossbow aimed right at her chest.

"No! No! I'm not a Vampire!" she barked at the archer. "I'm not a vampire and I don't want to hurt you." Now, even humans wanted her dead.

Unfortunately, the archer remained unconvinced. A person with that sort of jumping capability could not be human. And a mere girl, at that, wandering around Melchahim territory seemed all too suspicious. He kept the crossbow aimed at her heart, ready to shoot at any moment. Val saw the futility of her pleas but under no circumstance would she hurt this human. She couldn't blame him; it was his job. She simply immersed herself in Dark Matter and melted into shadow form as the arrow flew right through her incorporeal form and was wasted.

Quick as darkness, Val was well away from the human. She came upon a campfire and as she drew near two more Melchahim vampires popped out of the ground. She took out of her bag a brown crudely wrapped package and tossed it at the vampires with all her might. Instantly, the vampires were enveloped in a cloud of dust and were groaning in anguish. Their skin began to blister and burn, and they were also consequently coughing up blood. In their pandemonium, they suddenly attacked each other as though in frenzy, for their eyes stung and they could not tell who the enemy was.

Val let out an inhuman laugh but as her eyes began to glow black, she thought 'All these creatures ever do is run and scream. They don't even beg for mercy. What's the point? They're not even trying to kill me. There's no fun in torturing them. They're mindless zombie vampires, for goodness sake. How can I derive any pleasure from their pain?'

She basically decided to end the vampire's misery by decapitation. So she took out either a long dagger or a short sword and hacked off their heads in two consecutive blows. She left the bloody corpses on the ground and continued walking. Pretty soon, she came upon a large edifice wherein the only way out was up. Val would have to revert to her bestial form and hop up the levels but she decided melting into shadow was much faster.

Val stood before the wall and held up one hand up against the wall. She pushed against it as soon as the wall touched her hand she was once again consumed by Dark Matter. It was as if the wall swallowed her entirely for the rest of her body followed into shadow. In this form she was able to travel quickly and overcome all sorts of barriers.

A fleeting shadow flew up the stone wall and rematerialized at the top. Val continued on passing a short hallway, past a drawbridge and into some sort of tower. There, she was greeted by a most appalling figure. Its skin was dark as charcoal while its blood red eyes burned like ember. It snapped its horrific jaws at Val.

'Oh, not again,' she thought.

The vampire lunged at Val, who quickly sidestepped it in a flash of darkness. There was no time for her to retrieve anything from her bag. Instead, she held up her right hand at the vampire and pointed with her index finger. Instantly, the vampire began screaming in anguish. It flailed its claws at the air as though its skin were burning right off. Val intensified her power and the vampire clutched its head in madness. It reeled over from side to side. It seemed it might topple over at any moment. Its unsteady legs could no longer support its weight. Val snapped her fingers and at this command, the vampire fell right off the drawbridge and plummeted head first into the stone floor. Its head cracked on impact and it was very well dead when she got to the bottom.

This was a much stranger vampire than the less agile Melchahim. It seemed more aggressive than those zombie-esque vampires and had quicker reflexes but it was no different from every other vampire she had ever encountered. It fell to her powers as easily as the last. And now, she discovered, she felt no remorse for killing vampires. Five other Dumahim vampires followed in their demise as she passed by Raziel's clan territory. Some of them had their fangs pulled out or their bones mangled and stuck at particularly odd angles.

Val walked into the main courtyard and noticed a dominant symbol emblazoned on the walls. Something about it struck her. Strangely enough, it seemed so familiar. Had she not seen this symbol before back in the mansion of the Vampire Lord? She cautiously neared one of the symbols and stared blankly at the strange insignia. It couldn't be just a coincidence. Tiberius Cain had something to do with this, but what? What was it that associated this place and this symbol with Tiberius Cain? She could not explain the connection. But she was desperate for an answer. She had to find out.

A sudden snarling noise from behind attracted her attention. Two more black Dumanhim vampires seemingly appeared out pf nowhere. This was getting boring for her. These vampires were way too obvious. She nonchalantly held up both palms at the vampires and they fell to their knees in submission. These vampires were relatively weak, having no cunning at all. She pressed her hands to their foreheads and administered her most infamous of all tortures, the Insanity's Touch.

She instantly let go of the vampires and watched their demented reactions from a safe distance. One of the vampires began to chew aggressively at his arm. The other repeatedly slammed itself headfirst into the stone walls. Attracted by the commotion, another vampire came into view Val quickly jumped at it and consequently pushed it off the verge of madness as well. The vampire lost all its common sense, not that it would have had much common sense in the first place.

The third vampire, upon seeing the other two, shied away as quickly as possible to a far off corner like a frightened animal.

'Pathetic,' she thought.

If only her siblings could see her now. They would have been proud. This was exactly what they would have wanted her to be.

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Still fresh from the kill, Raziel walked out of Melchiah's inner chambers. He was on his way to the Pillars. He stepped out and decided to look around and see if any more Melchahim vampires had escaped his clutches. As he surveyed the surroundings, he observed an enigmatic silence throughout the entirety of the complex. It was simply too quiet. Where had all the vampires gone? Surely, he had not wiped out all the Melchahim in one sweep of the place. There could not have been so few. Surely, there were more. But where had they all gone?

He walked on for several minutes until he came upon three Melchahim vampires huddled against a corpse. The cannibalistic creatures voraciously gorged upon one of their own kin. They paid no attention to Raziel and thus fell easy prey to him. He swiftly devoured their souls and neared the corpses which the vampires had been feeding on. Aside from being all chewed up, he could see that the corpses were still fresh and that their skin had been burned as though with acid. He silently pondered at the cause of this massacre. Had the humans developed a new weapon that could spray water with such force that it could kill a handful of vampires at a time? Or had this been the handiwork of something that was neither human nor vampire? Either way, he intended to find out.

It was not difficult to find the source of this genocide. Innumerable cadavers littered the pathways; each one seemed to have a different cause of death than the last. Raziel was completely baffled by these murders. One had its heart wrenched out. Another had its innards spilling on the cold wet ground. A random Dumahim had its tongue cut off. The only pattern Raziel could perceive was that most of them seemed to be missing their fangs. He followed the evident trail of bodies into his own former clan territory.

Before long he came upon the catalyst of the inexplicable fatalities. She was a cloaked figure watching in morbid fascination at the most comical sight. Inexplicably, she burst into a fit of semi-maniacal laughter. This frightened the witless vampires and they scurried away in terror. Her keen sense of smell perceived Raziel's scent and caught her attention. She turned around to face Raziel as though she had been waiting for him all this time.

Raziel tensed as he shifted into a defensive stance. Val looked at him with that sadistic glint in her eyes. An eerie silence followed as they locked glances. Val cocked her head to one side playfully and grinned as one possessed. She decided to be the first one to break the silence.

"You!" she shouted, pointing her finger at him. "You are the one I saw in my dream, aren't you?"

"I don't know what you are talking about, demon," Raziel replied.

"Who are you calling demon, you… demon," she snapped back at him.

"You call me demon and yet you are the one responsible for all this, are you not?"

"Of course it was. Things begin to happen by accident. I am an accident and so are you." By that moment, the madness of Nosgoth had taken hold of her. It was in the air around her, in the vampires she killed and in this creature as well. She did not even realize that she locked her eyes with his and he did not even flinch. "What does it matter anyway? You are the first sentient being I have seen in this world and yet you are no different from the others. I presume you want to kill me as well?"

"And so it shall be done." Raziel replied as he lunged at Val.

In response, Val made a few quick gestures summoning the Dark Matter around her body. Immediately, her body became coated with thick, black plasma. She willed it to encompass Raziel in its lethal grip. It quickly surrounded him but did him no harm.

"You waste my time, creature. Now leave me be!" Raziel ominously replied as he brushed fragments of Dark Matter from his body.

"You're not affected by my power. You're not a vampire, are you? What exactly are you?" Val said, visibly shocked.

"I have no time for your petty little questions. I have more important matters to deal with right now"

"No, you listen to me demon! I'm determined to find out my answers and if I'm going to be stuck here for some time, then I might as well ask every damn creature in this god forsaken place, beginning with you."

"Get out of my way now or I promise your death will be slow and agonizingly painful," Raziel spoke slowly

"Why must everyone kill me?" she sighed.

With that Raziel lunged at her, digging his razor sharp claws into her flesh. However, at the very last second, before Raziel's claws even touched Val's skin, she turned into mist and he went right through her. Val and Raziel both spun around. Raziel once again attempted to slash at Val but to no avail. Again and again he attacked her but his claws simply went right through her. It was as if she was a ghost that was never there, insubstantial and incorporeal. It was as though Raziel was merely hallucinating and striking away at the form of nothingness.

In the meantime, Val watched his futile actions with interest at first but quickly grew bored of it.

"It's useless, demon. I could keep this up all night" she said. "But if you're going to continue being like this, then I'll have to find my answers some other way then."

And with that, Val simply disappeared. In truth she had turned herself into her shadow form in order not to be found out. Her shadow form had many advantages: her scent could not be perceived, her footsteps could not be heard, and she could only be seen by Raziel if she was not careful. And if Raziel did sense her presence, he would not be able to hurt her, not as a shadow at least. Stealth was her greatest strength and many times it seemed as though she merely flickered out of existence or melted into oblivion.

Raziel suddenly shifted around looking for her as though expecting her to appear again somewhere else. But he finally realized that he was alone, supposedly. Val was closer than he expected. In truth she was standing right beneath him and yet he could not discern her. Not wanting to waste another moment, Raziel immediately continued on his way to the Sanctuary of the Clans, with Val, unknowingly, right on his tail. Curiosity compelled her to follow him. It was better than wandering around aimlessly in desolate wasteland.

The Wraith speedily exited his former territory and made his way to the abyss. Raziel easily glided over to the cliff ledge where Kain had ordered him to be cast in. Val, on the other hand, was able to defy the laws of physics with her shadow form. She quickly followed him across the abyss and past the rickety bridge, directly to the Pillars.

When Raziel finally reached the main entrance of the Sanctuary, he found that he could not unlock the enormous door, no matter how hard he tried. However, he fortunately remembered that there was a side entrance which could allow him passage into the Sanctuary. He walked over to the barred entrance and shifted into spectral.

Meanwhile, Val was taken by surprise as Raziel vanished in a swirling green mist. She immediately went through the bars hoping he was only on the other side. Apparently, she had underestimated Raziel for she did not expect him to suddenly vanish like that. As soon as she was on the other side, she heard a loud bang. The passageway was suddenly blocked. A large slab of rock fell from above impeding her path.

However, as suddenly as her way was blocked, it was reopened. She quickly followed suit as Raziel went to the right of the passage ahead of him. Val caught up with him just soon enough to witness him disappear, leaving behind some green residual particles suspended in the air. Val was perplexed by this action but a voice at the back of her head had seen the pattern and told Val to hastily go through the bars and see where he went. Once again, she caught up to Raziel in time to see him open the doors of the Pillars room and enter.
Shortie: Shooting at the Pillars
Raziel: Kain is deified. The clans tell tales of him but few know the truth. He was mortal once, as were we all. However, his contempt for humanity drove him to create me and my brethren. I am Raziel, first born of his lieutenants. I stood with Kain and my brethren at the dawn of the empire. I have served him a millennium. Over time we became less human and more divine. Kain would enter the state of change and emerge with a new gift. Some years after the master, our evolution would follow, until I had the honor of surpassing my lord. For my transgression, I earned a new kind of reward… agony. There was only one possible outcome – my eternal damnation. I, Raziel was to suffer the fate of traitors and weaklings and burn forever in the bowels of the Lake of the Dead.
Kain: …
Raziel: Well?
Kain: I forgot my line. What was it again?
Raziel: CAST HIM IN!!
Turel and Dumah let go of Raziel, grab Kain and haul him over the abyss instead.