No shadows flitted across the rooftop.
None could, for the storm had arrived. Thick clouds choked the moon. Flurries of wind and a ceaseless barrage of rain exploded against the roof tiles. Lightning intruded at odd intervals, lighting up the black only briefly. The night was barely navigable.
Yet navigate it they did. The two shadows did not flit across the rooftop; one staggered, limped, tripped, and eked out a painfully slow and unsteady advance whilst carrying the other. Her flashlight could have cut through the dark, yet she dared not risk drawing attention, not when the storm perfectly covered their escape. For that same reason she chose not to travel through the manor itself. Instead, she hobbled along in the direction she'd guessed led towards the exit. With visibility so poor that she could barely see her own feet, it would be impossible to tell until the last moment.
It hadn't taken Noel long to take heed after finding herself breathing fresh – if damp – air once more. She harbored no more illusions of waking her partner and staging a counterattack; the death of any major member of the Rozay-en family would have been long-since foreseen. The mere act of going for the kill would damn them both. But if they could just get to the gate, get out somehow, that would be enough. She spared no other thought for the future. The part of her that panicked and whined had gone quiet, as if it too had been left behind.
Noel dove blindly into the rain with Ciel thrown over her shoulder in a firefighter's carry, feeling the chill soak into her clothes. Soon she would be shivering, and not just from abject terror. Then extremities would start to go numb, and she could forget fight and flight.
Was she even going the right way? Everywhere seemed the same: sharp, slippery black dunes and trenches all around. She'd set off on the correct line, but the rain could have easily spun her around. With her senses rendered useless, all she could trust was the visceral terror in the back of her mind that waxed and waned seemingly of its own will. If the fear grew, she was headed the wrong way. If it diminished, she'd march onwards.
Noel had almost found peace in her toil when her next step landed on empty air and sent her careening over the edge of the roof. She was slow to react – but not too slow to twist in the air blindly grab for the roof. The edge of a sharp rain gutter dug into her palm as her mangled weapon fell into the black below. The storm swallowed up her pained hiss.
Had she not been lightened by litany, she would've found it impossible to hold on. Instead, Noel hung there for a hundred heartbeats, just breathing, sheltered under the eave. She came to a decision, hugged Ciel close to her chest, and let go.
The fall took longer than it should have. Winds pushed them back up, nearly sending the unweighted women flying. But eventually Noel smoothly splashed down onto mud and grass. Then panic seized her.
What if someone had felt that? The outer garden was a defense mechanism. Every last blade of grass was under Rozay-en influence. But surely the rain would cover her, right? Surely their reduced weight would not register as that of a person, right?
She could not be sure of anything – except the dread running down her back. So she drove forward once more, pushing away from the manor.
Almost immediately Noel tripped over a charred corpse. One of the Dead her barrier had caught. As sure a sign as any that she was headed the right way. She trudged on through what quickly became a sea of burnt bodies, thick with the musty smell of wet ash. She would have been easy prey for any surviving ghouls, yet there were none. The church barrier into which she'd poured most of her strength had held fast and faded last.
When she felt stone under her feet, Noel knew she had found the path. She followed it blindly as it led her away from the manor. The uneasy buzzing behind her ears dimmed.
Soon she stood before the gate to the curtain wall. The final barrier, one she'd been unable to overcome. Last she saw it, there had been human hands pounding upon the merciless black iron. She expected and feared to see bodies piled up around it.
It was wide open.
She almost didn't believe it. Her eyes were playing tricks. An illusion of desire, surely.
A flash of lightning disproved Noel's disbelief. The gate wasn't just open; it had been rent asunder. One door peeked out of the mud. The other hung from a single hinge. Sitting in the muck between them was a familiar assembly of twisted wood and metal, one she'd thought captured.
"The Seventh Scripture?" She could hardly hear her own hushed words. "Who could've…?"
No answer came forth. The downpour washed away any tracks to or from the gate, as well as Noel's will to investigate. She stared for several moments, before a shiver down her neck drove her back into action.
The Scripture either resisted her usual lightening sacrament, or else she had become so weakened as to be incapable of administering it properly. She tried and failed twice before the load lightened to the point where she could lift it from the mud with one hand. In its place she left her halberd.
Her exit was unimpeded. Neither vampire nor twisted tendril lunged at her from the darkness. Rita was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was still in the garden. Noel continued her numb advance, losing herself in the act of dragging one foot before the other, until she realized with a gasp that the rain was no longer beating on her back, but instead on the leaves of the trees overhead. She had reached the forest.
Elation lasted all of five seconds. Then she walked face-first into a tree and staggered, swearing and sputtering. The going would only be slower now that there was no path. It would be nearly impossible to find the remnants of their temporary base camp in the dark, let alone the Vespa they'd carefully camouflaged.
Would she wait until the storm cleared? Until morning? Was it time to risk the flashlight again? No. She had to make for the highway on the other side of the woods and put as much distance between herself and the Chateau as possible. It would be a nonstop walk from here, even though she was tired, in pain, and soaked to the bone.
"…maybe a quick stop."
After several close encounters with low-hanging branches, the breeze from above grew stronger. The weak night vision Noel had developed showed a small clearing, bisected by a fallen tree trunk. It was as good a place as any.
Noel set Ciel down first, laying her against the trunk with the Seventh Holy Scripture at her side. Then she blindly fumbled for her pockets, pried one open with stiff fingers, and withdrew from it a tightly folded plastic bag containing a dozen small tablets and pills, many of which had been crushed into powder. She tore it open and felt through the bag, identifying them by touch, picking out one, two, three tablets-
"Ooo-hoo. Combat stimulants? Didn't think you still used those."
The Executor gave a very un-Executor-like squeak and nearly dropped the bag entirely. She clutched her arms tight to her chest and threw her gaze all about, finding no source to the words she'd just heard.
"No, no, don't stop on my behalf. I'm curious to see what you have – oh my, is that what I think it is?" The strange voice that had cut right through the rain was pleased by its discovery. "Why, I never expected the Church to recreate D-IX. That's certainly one way to get the heart pumping!"
It came from nowhere and no one. The cheery voice had no accent and spoke in a high-pitched timbre that resembled nothing she'd heard from a member of the Rozay-en family. Noel slid a hand across the tree trunk, reaching for where Ciel kept her Black Keys.
"There's no need to fight," said the voice. "I'm only an observer right now. Though if you want an upgrade, I'll do at least as good a job as amphetamine and cocaine with only half the toxicity."
"Who are you, 'observer'?" Noel had tried and failed to locate the enemy. It was time to stall them out until an opportunity revealed itself.
"Aha, so the coin lands on 'cool' this time. Shame, shame… well, call me Charlotte. That should satisfy your curiosity, Ms. Executor. But it's not really curiosity that's buzzing around your head right now, is it? The only thing you want to know is whether you're caught now, or later."
Caught. A trap. This would be one of their scouts, then, awaiting fleeing humans. Of course they would've posted a guard. Noel's hand dipped into Ciel's pocket, seizing the hilt of a weapon she might use in futile self-defense.
"Oh, don't clam up now! Our conversation was just getting started," Charlotte purred. In terms of self-satisfaction alone she matched up to Rita. "The locals are so unfriendly that I'm just dying to talk to someone. Did you know they won't even let me through the gates? I've been camped out here for ages, all by my lonesome. It's enough to drive a girl mad!"
"How… unfortunate." Noel withdrew her fingers. She instead reached back into the bag and sought out what she needed once more, trying to drown out the voice. "But now's a really bad time. I'm kind of in a hurry here. But tell you what: leave a number and I'll call you later."
"When you two showed up in the evening, I so very much wanted to chat," continued the voice, ignoring her. "But that monster over there was just too scary, y'know? And now you stumble out of there with dawn right around the corner, running as if hell is at your back… you've met with a terrible fate, haven't you? The symptoms are plain as day."
"Yeah… yeah, that's about right." Noel was past the point of being paralyzed by fear. She'd been through too much to stop and weep from frustration and confusion. She found the drugs in question, fished them out of the bag, and downed each, one by one. The medicine stuck to her dry throat, refusing to go down easy. "Ugh… so, what do you think of that fate, Charlotte?" Was she speaking to foe, or friend?
"What I think, Miss Noel?" said the voice in a sing-song, cutting through the fading rainfall. "I'll tell you, but first: what do you think? I've never been in there. What's it like?"
"I think… it's just another example of vampiric depravity." Noel's response was weary. Dulled, like her feelings. A shudder ran through her limbs as the capsules began to dissolve, stimulants and opioids washing into her bloodstream. Soon the pain in her ankle would fade. She would be able to run. "Monsters, playing human. Too cruel and stupid to be any good at it."
"Oh? Just playing?" the voice was sharp now. "That's all?"
"Vermin don't feel love," was Noel's response. She wiggled her fingers and toes, clenched and unclenched them into fists, willing blood to return to them. "They only remember what they've lost and try to remake it with what they have left: hunger for blood."
"And what if I'm one of those vermin? Should I be offended on their behalf?"
"If you could do something, you would have," Noel said without missing a beat. "Words are a weapon of the weak, Charlotte." She was certain the voice could not harm her. She had a sense for it. Charlotte truly was an observer, only able to hide and speak. It could be working for anyone, from the Church to another Ancestor. Either way, it represented another set of eyes on her back. "Now go on. Answer. Tell me what you think. Then I walk away, and you don't follow."
"…fine." Charlotte dropped the cheery affect. "I think it's a shame. A shame that you'll make it. Whatever stalled the Rose Princess, it'll be enough. She won't catch you. Her family is paralyzed and at odds. Her blood banks roam free. Somehow. And it's such. A. Shame."
Noel stood. Her strength was returning back bit by bit. She could somewhat see now. Whatever Charlotte was, she was ready to face it. A blade materialized from the red hilt in her hand.
"Do you know how much that girl lost?" Charlotte asked rhetorically. "Her humanity was the least of it. She tried everything until she found a way, overcoming misfortune after misfortune. She's become beautiful from it. So beautiful I want to bottle her up and keep her on my shelf. Hers is a story of love, dear. It's so inspirational I could cry. That's why it's a shame."
Her voice dropped an octave. It wasn't coming from nowhere, now. It had an origin point. Somewhere nearby.
"A shame someone like you got victory just handed to her," said Charlotte. "You, who tried nothing, accomplished nothing, sacrificed nothing. You, who love nothing and no one, and have the gall to sit here and pretend you're not just a bitter, confused girl who never moved on. It's just wrong, darling. Useless villains like you don't win. They always lose to love in the end."
"…yeah, you're right. You did go mad out here," Noel scoffed. "What, couldn't take no for an answer when she locked you out? Talk about a psycho admirer. I'm out of here-"
The trees shook. The ground beneath Noel's feet rumbled and shifted. A great green hiss drowned out the rain.
"What the – what did you do!?" Noel called out.
"Nothing at all, girl!" came the reply amid girlish giggles. "As you said, I'm powerless! Nothing more than a spider on your shoulder. But if words are the weapon of weak, then I wield them far better than you."
A distant call rang through the woods. A booming wail born from snapping timber and rustling leaves. "Got you," it seemed to say. "Got you, you bitch."
"Shouldn't have stopped for a chat, dear," said Charlotte. "Now she will catch you. Unless you leave the girl here. Go on. Prove me wrong. Sacrifice what you hate to save what you love."
Ciel weighed down on her shoulder, heavier than ever. Noel shook her head, ridding herself of the thought. She could muster no logical reason to protect the unconscious girl in her arms, but something within her refused to consider it.
"Oh? You won't? Then how about I tell you about the gate?" Glee dripped from Charlotte's every word. "Would you like to know what happened after you left those humans there as a distraction?"
"I would not!"
She hurled the Black Key into the trunk of a nearby tree. There was a screech and a squeal and a splatter that mixed in with the sound of rain. A spider the size of Noel's palm writhed upon the bark, bleeding black and green around the blade lodged in its abdomen.
"Ahaha…" it spoke in Charlotte's voice. "Pointless… just wasting more time… digging yourself deeper. It was a maid, you know. Dragging that thing behind her. Someone must've been watching, for her to make it all that way unscathed…"
Noel's blood ran cold even as her heart nearly beat through her chest.
"None of them could use that contraption… so she prayed for help," said the spider. "Gave herself to it. Made the sacrifice, for a handful of humans who'd already given up. And after it blew open the gates, it ate her. Hehehe… that's what love is, you fool. It's what miracles are made of. That's why you'll never get anywhere."
"Shut up!" Noel seized the key, dragged it upwards.
"Too late… too late for you-"
With one last wrench, the voice went silent.
The Executor stood alone in the clearing, as the forest shook and died and was reborn around her. She hurled a curse into the sky, took hold of the Scripture and Ciel, and started running.
The shaking followed her. The trees groaned and twisted, their roots rising from the forest floor, slowing her advance. She leapt over natural tripwires and ducked beneath swooping branches and even as she sped up and the drugs dulled her hesitation and weariness she knew, without a doubt, that the spider had not been lying.
Rita was free. She was in the woods and closing in. There was no escaping this monster. It would have to be confronted head-on or bought off.
Noel broke through into another clearing. A familiar pond lay before her, as well as the stone upon which she'd sat and contemplated hours ago. She stopped by it, gasping for air, chest aching from the strain of the uninterrupted sprint under undesirable conditions.
The storm had calmed as she ran. The rain was only a drizzle that slowed as she sat by the edge of the pond. The clouds allowed the moon to peek through for a short minute.
Noel saw her reflection again. She was wearier than ever. Burnt, bruised, with tear-marks on her cheeks and twigs in her hair. A pathetic sight by all accounts, made worse by the sight of Ciel clutched to her chest like a sleeping child. As far as the water was concerned, they were inseparable.
"…ah. That's how."
An idea struck Noel as the image swam in her mind. One too horrible to consider, but too right to discard. One, two, back to one, yet still two. It would work. She stared at the reflection as the forest shook around her. For once, she didn't hate what she saw.
"You'll owe me big for this," she murmured, setting Ciel down. "I'll hang it over your head for the rest of your life."
The Black Key's blade gleamed in her hand. She tightened her fingers, steadied her shaking hand, and took a deep breath.
"Miracles are made of love? Bullshit. I'll show you a real miracle."
A hideous scream resounded through the woods. The twisted woman tearing her way through the forest paused, took it in, laughed, and resumed her pursuit, pushing trees and terrain out of her way as she brought the plants under heel.
The wounds she had sustained in the garden had long since healed, gone along with the tenacious cockroach that had inflicted them. Her dress hung in tatters, making her more beast than beauty. A blanket of leaves woven together with milky roots protected her modesty where cloth could not. She had long since run out of patience. Only wrath remained. She would not be denied again.
The trees, now her thralls, whispered to her, telling her where to go. She loped through the woods with unerring precision, closing in.
Soon. Soon. She was close. A minute, two at most. She could smell the blood through the rain.
In an explosion of leaves and branches, Rita Rozay-en broke into the moonlit clearing.
Before her, next to a serene pond, was a smooth stone covered in blood. Atop it sat a phone. The scent trail ended there.
The phone started ringing.
Rita considered it. Wariness warred with wisdom and won. She had nothing to fear, death least of all. She strode towards the pond, picked up the phone, and held it to her ear.
"Hi-hi." The voice on the other end trembled through the distortion. "Um, I'm speaking to the head of the house, right? This should be our first proper talk."
"You can't run," said the vampire. "You know this, Executor."
"Haha… yep. Seems so. You've got my number."
"I was planning to make an offer," Rita continued, "of solace and security. A peaceful parting, should my prize be returned. Consider it rescinded."
"Oh? And why's it off the table now?"
The moon played across the pond. The blood had found its way there, too. The surface was clouded red.
"She no longer suffices to still my soul. When one commits offense against the family name, their death becomes a matter of honor."
"Honor, huh." The woman on the other end paused, considered. "But you don't have that, do you, Rita?" Her shaking voice had strength behind it. "You don't give a damn about your family."
"Personal insults now?" she hissed. "I've long since tired of the zealots of the Church, who seek to understand nothing beyond their apathetic God. Your provocations, too, are tiresome."
A crunchy chuckle followed by a groan followed, before resolving into words. "No, no, I'm just myself here. The one who poured you wine. The way you put on that performance, it was clear as day: you hate every one of them. Playing daughter and sister and cousin got old long before dealing with your enemies did, huh? Do they know you're just leading them on? That you never forgave daddy for dragging you kicking and screaming into vampirism? That you're trying to get rid of them, to take all the power and blood of the Rozay-en for yourself, Ms. Fake Ancestor?"
The vampire's hand tensed. The plastic of the phone cracked and warped under her grip.
"Kill yourself while you still can," Rita said calmly. "For when I see you, that will no longer be an option."
The phone exploded into chunks of metal and plastic as she crushed it completely.
The trees around the clearing rattled and shook. Rita reached into the core of her being and drew on all the blood she had devoured over the past month, using it to sharpen her senses to their utmost. The movement of leaves through the air, the chirping of insects, the trajectory of each drop of rain, she saw and heard and felt them all.
Including the humanoid shape below the water's bloody surface.
A gleaming bolt erupted from the pond, aimed squarely at her center mass.
Rita reacted without thinking. One vine near her cheek whipped out to intercept the projectile. Another four shot from her palm, spearing into the water. All found their mark.
She examined the gleaming arrow in her grasp and scoffed. "Bronze from the Baldacchino? You thought something this recent could harm me?" It crumpled under her grip. She turned her attention to the soaked figure dragged out from beneath the water.
It was nothing more than a bundle of sticks and dirt filling out a muddy dress sized for a teenage girl. Delicate blues and lilacs were stained and torn beyond repair.
Where the head should have been was a palm-sized golden child, holding aloft a tiny bow and ticking like a clock. It nocked another arrow with mechanical movements, and then loosed.
Rita caught the second arrow between two fingers. Her vines seized the cherub and tightened. Metal crumpled and deformed. The bow snapped in two. With one more squeeze, it was torn to bits. A shower of gears and axles rained into the pond. The ticking stopped.
A golden, leonine roar washed over the vampire, blinding and deafening her as the contraption detonated. Heated shrapnel dug into her skin. The force nearly knocked her from her feet. A four-winged condemnation bore down on her, demanding she cease to be.
Her very being refused. Even as Rita's scowl was blown away, blood filled the gaps and reformed it whole and vicious as ever. The wounds on her body slowly sewed themselves shut from within. The trick had succeeded only in irritating her for a short time.
It was all the time Noel needed.
Bright headlights lit up behind Rita. An engine thrummed and growled. Wheels spun against damp ground, found their traction, and hurtled into the clearing, bearing a bright pink scooter, its twin occupants, and a shining silver spike, salvaged from scrapped scripture and mounted on the front.
"Vampiiiiiiire!"
The call forced Rita to attention. She whirled about, outlined in the spotlight, with not even a second to act.
Her vines were burnt away and slow to regrow. Her legs had yet to recover enough mass to for a certain dodge. Her blood reserves were diminished enough to give pause to the idea of stopping the light by force. All were still avenues with high odds of success, but she did not reach for them.
Instead, without even thinking, Rita Rozay-en turned to the weapon she trusted most.
The Rose Eyes bloomed once more. Magical energy dense enough to arrest one's thoughts poured through the clearing.
In her sight were two women sharing one seat. The one she desired most, and now the one she hated most. A common woman with no talents, no virtues, and a plethora of unexceptional vices. Noel's greatest achievement had been earning the ire of a Dead Apostle Ancestor. Her prize would be having her soul rent from her body.
Rita sought out the girls' eyes. Looked for their faces through the blinding light, to witness the moment determination became despair.
She found them. Noel's teeth were clenched tight and showing, malice writ upon her features. A pathetic, fearful hatred reserved only for the weak. Ciel, naturally, was unconscious.
Yet, strangely, the girls had one thing in common: One eye closed, and one eye open.
Noel's left was screwed shut, bleeding red, while Ciel's right had been taped open, revealing an unfocused pupil with a mirror-like sheen across it.
She could have relented. Decided, in that moment, to pursue another path. But when it came to her eyes, which had never once failed, the Rozay-en ruler would never accept defeat.
The storm of rose petals filled the women's vision. With it came an order, a commandment to halt in place until told otherwise. To be bound, hand and foot and heart, by the Rose Princess' secret garden.
The storm of petals blew through Ciel and Noel. Then it gathered, swirled into a knot, and burst.
Rita found herself unable to move. She could only watch, in the moments before the charging spike speared through her shoulder, as Ciel's eye twitched, shifted, and met hers.
The collision sent them all flying. The Vespa crumpled against its target. Noel went face-first into the underbrush. Ciel rolled to a stop against the smooth pondside stone. And Rita found herself on her back in the shallows, staring at the sky.
The clouds had cleared. The moon was full. Only it was not the moon she was used to; it was a bright red, made up of layers and layers and layers of petals. One by one they unfolded, peeled away, drifted through the sky atop candy-like clouds.
Within the moon's deepest crevice was an eye. Her own eye.
She could not help but look into it forever.