III. Veneer Of Vanity

"What..." Guiche muttered, blushing. Montmorency pulled his head down, pressed herself tightly against him and kissed him right in the lips. Guiche stiffened, but soon put his arms around her, and returned the kiss. She was not very experienced, but she tried to make it for it with fervor. She pushed him down on the grass and straddled him, hips brushing against his lower region, without breaking the kiss. When she parted, he was flushed, hair a mess, looking up at her like he was seeing her for the first time.

"Cat got your tongue?" Montmorency said, and licked her lips. Some part of her had be clamoring for this, even if she knew that such eagerness was not exactly proper and now that it was happening, now that they were going to be together for real, she just couldn´t stop.

"Mon-mon..." Ah, how she liked that. For anyone else, that name would have embarrassed her, but on his lips it sounded perfect. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, dear." She said, and kissed him again, sliding her tongue into his mouth. His hands went down from her waist, and cupped her butt. Montmorrency moaned, and pressed herself harder against him. She broke off the kiss briefly, to breath, and saw it. His eyes were round, open wide and they were bleeding. Montmorrency stared in horror and opened her mouth to scream, but all that came out was a strangled gasp.

"Whats wrong, Mon-mon?" He said, and one hand went up her back, making her tremble, and came to rest on her neck. "Whats wrong?"

His eyes continued bleeding, and they were glazed over like everything worked fine, all right, but there was no longer anything inside. She watched, frozen, as the skin of one of his hands started to rot, showing the meat and bone beneath it, only vaguely aware he had lifted his other hand. He dough both of his hands into her neck, and pressed. She gasped, and tried to pry off his hands, but they didn´t even move. She started feeling dizzy, like the world was floating away from her and, looking down at Guiche, she wished it did. His face was rotten like a corpse, and there were deep , bleeding gashes on his cheeks, that showed a glimmer of white which would only be his bones.

Staring into that death face, Montmorrency at last found her voice. She screamed.

Montmorrency opened her eyes, and looked at the ceiling, shrouded in darkness, of her own room. She was sweating so much her nightclothes were stuck to her body, and had become see through. She sat up on the bed, a hand on her chest and listened to the wild beating of her own heart. Breathe in, breathe out. It was a dream, just a dream. Everything was fine. It was stupid to let herself be scared by something like that, in the first place. Guiche was already gone, and he couldn´t no longer hurt her. But... but, that was what hurt her the most. That he was gone, and he was never coming back, even if the Headmaster dragged him back to the academy. His heart already belonged to that girl, Katie, despite of her love for him, despite everything she had done to him.

It was vexing; all of it. She was not some weak little girl that needed a man by her side to be happy, yet no more that a day had passed since the Headmaster´s announcement and here she was, having nightmares that send her heart racing. She had be humiliated in front of the entire school because of that bastard, and now she couldn´t even have her pride. Montmorency grabbed the pillow, and threw it against the wall in front of her. It hit it with a dull thud, and fell to the floor.

"Fuck you, Guiche." She muttered, hoarsely. "I hope you die."

She was not going to be restrained by this. Guiche was a thing how the past, and she just had to dealt with it. Sure, her classmates will sneer at her, and insult her behind her back, but it would not go further than that and, besides, it surely was not going to last long. The Zero still attended the academy, and sometime else would happen that would catch their attention. Nightmares would easily be taken care of with dreamless sleep potions. This was nothing, just an annoying little bump in the road. She would face the world, head held height, as a proud Montmorency without Guiche by her side.

Montmorency got out of bed, undressed and changed into her school uniform. While she tied the cloak, she looked at herself at the mirror. Petite, and her breasts had not grown, but she had a nice complexion, if bit marred by the freckles, long legs and a tight butt. Anybody would be happy to be her boyfriend; she didn´t have to be ashamed of anything. She got out the room, locked the door and headed towards class.

While she walked through the hallways, some of them stopped, stared, whispered far to audibly to be a mistake about how easily she had be played, and how Guiche had preferred the company how a girl with such a plain family history rather that her. Is what always happens to cold wet fishes like her, they said. She clenched her fist, and carried on, like she hadn´t heard anything. Class was a relief. She had no interest in the majority of the class-and why would see, if she would only use water. But, at least, her classmates remained silent, like the nobles they were supposed to be, and she hadn´t to heard nothing about it. And when they did speak out, it was to mock the Zero for another one of her failures, so even that was a relief.

She signed, and looked down on her notes of this Water Magic lesson. On her notebook, words were being scrawled on the page, red as blood. She drew back, and held back a scream. It would disappear, or she soon would wake up foe real. This... but it didn't disappear, and it was not a dream.

IF YOU SO WANT TO SEE YOUR DEAR GUICHE, THEN JUST KILL YOURSELF.

BOTH HIM AND HIS LITTEL FRIEND ARE ALREADY DEAD.

Suddenly, the plume snapped in half under her straining fingers. The broken pieces fell to the ground, and rolled down the wooden stairs. The words on the page faded away, like they had never be there. Surely, they had never be there. Mister Anderson expression changed slightly, and he looked at her.

"Miss Montmorency, is something wrong?" He said, and, at his words, she would almost feel the glazes of the entire class shifting to her. She fidgeted for a moment, then forced herself to stop. Calm. She had to be calm.

"No, nothing is wrong, professor Anderson. I just that I... uh... I broke my plume." She said, blushing lightly and heard a snicker, not loud enough to draw the teachers attention. Montmorrency clenched her fits, but didn´t make another move. If she did, her reputation would receive another crack and it was already enough. More that enough.

"I see. If you need it, I can let you one."

"Is fine, professor, I have another one." Montmorency said, fumbled with her bag and took off one of her spare plumes. The professor´s gaze lingered on her for a moment, then looked away and continued the lesson like it had never be interrupted. She looked down, focusing only on her notebook which had no signs of the words that had be written there only moments ago, and kept on writing notes. Class passed down with the only sound being the professor´s words, and when the bell ringed, ending the last class of the day, she tugged the book into her bag and almost eagerly went away. She would go back to normal, all would go back to normal, but first, she had something to do.

This is just had to stop.

Montmorency drew back, and whipped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. There it was. It had taken her the better part of the day, and the copious quantity of homework hadn´t helped either, but it was done. A dreamless sleep potion. She knew such potions were regulated by the infirmary staff, but she didn´t even care. She grabbed the bottle, sat down on the bed, took off the cap, and drank some of it, perhaps more that necessary. It burned when going down her throat, but it didn´t taste that bad, at all. She laid down, covered herself and tried to sleep. She turned of the bed for a while, then opened her eyes. She felt uncomfortable, and her skin kind of itched. Nothing that made sleeping easy.

Then, she heard it. The tiles creaked twice, almost in unison. Something had felt, she thought. A book or something. But if it was that, she would have heard a crash, not that barely audible creak, and two things falling on the ground nearly in unison was too much of a coincidence. Besides, she had her books nearly ordered. If one book toppled over, most of them would go down with it. So, it was... again, the tiles creaked twice. Steps. It had too be steps. She sat up, and clapped her hands twice, intending to reach for her wand and stop whatever joker had...

Guiche.

It was Guiche wavering towards her, Guiche, dressed in a white blouse splattered with blood. His pants had deep, bleeding gashes. His face was pale, and even thought he still walked his eyes were glazed over, like in that dream. He stared at her, right in the eyes.

"It killed me!" Guiche voice rose, wavering. "I wanted love, I looked everywhere for it but you pushed me away, pushed me away so this is your fault, all your fault!"

Montmorency scrambled back, until her back hit the wall. There was a click in her throat. Her wand. She had to get her wand. Her hand fumbled across the nightstand, grasped it and pointed it at him. Her arms trembled. Guiche continued advancing, like he hadn´t see the wand. Or he didn´t care.

"Please!" Montmorency screamed. She would almost fell her mind tearing off its hinges. "Get away for me, I didn't do anything!"

"Its all right, dear.." Guiche, that thing that was now Guiche, croaked. He extended his arms towards her. "Everything is all right. You deserve to die for doing this to me, but I forgive you. Let us talk about love, together. Lets do it, right now."

Something clicked inside her mind, then. She forced her arms to stop trembling, and muttered an incantation. A gush of water shoot out the tip, and hit Guiche right in the chest, driving a hole through it. Guiche stumbled back, but he didn´t not fell. He kept walking, like that hole wasn´t there.

"That´s bad." That thing drawled out, and she saw that his teeth were fangs. "That´s very bad of you, but don´t worry, I will forgive you anyway."

Maybe... maybe she should just stop. Laid down her wand, and let him kill her. In a moment, she would felt his nails digging into her throat, and a little after that her heart would finally stop. She didn´t know it if was just or anything like that, but at least this darkness would fade. She would fly, freely. Perhaps even finding her atonement, because no matter if this was real or not, his words held truth. She had pushed him away, and now he was gone. So...

No.

No.

She jumped out of the bed, holding onto her wand tightly and backed away for whatever creature it was. Help would come, soon. They had made enough noise and nobody had show up yet, but it was better to not think about that. Help would come because help had to come, and than was that. It all couldn´t end like this. Montmorency send another gush of water against that creature, and one of his arms flew right off. It flew, and hit the ground with a sickening, squeaking noise. Like it was not even flesh, and maybe that was true.

"Oh, oh, you dirty girl, come back here. " He said, his jaws opening and closing as if preparing to take a bite out of her. Her back hit something. The window, it was the window. Calm, calm. She wouldn´t dealt with this, but if she managed to reach a teacher, any teacher, then everything would be all right...

He was right in front of her, right in front of her, oh god-

A crash. The wind, she would felt the wind now, tugging at her clothes and...

It looked down, and saw that her neck snapped when she hit the ground. The child didn´t felt a thing. Ah, that´s too bad. It would have liked to taste it, her terror when she slowly chocked on her own blood, feeling how she died, praying for their Founder to save her or perhaps for boy It had cast into the deathligths which were Its eyes. That crushing sense of despair she would get she realized help wouldn´t come, it was never going to come and that she was going to die, would be utterly delicious. So, that was a real shame. It wouldn´t have feed for her immediately, of course-she served a purpose greater than that-but It would felt the sole idea reinvigorating It. They just tasted so much better when they were afraid!

Her corpse would remain there, for now, until that glory-hungry fool would discover her, and shut down the school. After that, It would be easily enough to grab her for the morgue or anywhere, and feed. But no soon; no, no so soon. There were more important things than that. Like that stupid little girl who called herself Its master. Together, they would go back to the Valliere state. She would be so trilled to see her family again, and It too.

It too wanted to see them.