1627AD, Wudang Mountain Temple Complex
"Salutations, disciples and descendants of the mystic teacher! You stand before Countess Remilia Scarlet, the Devil de Crimson, The eastbound vampire of the west and the eternal red moon! Your masters promised me the fate of Hong Meiling, and I have come to collect!
How's that sound?" Remilia asked with a self-satisfied smile.
Flandre Scarlet tilted her head, her red eyes searching her sister's face. "What's 'de Crimson?'"
Remilia frowned. "It's French. The devil of Crimson!" She declared, raising a fist.
Flandre blinked at her. "Sounds like a dessert." She decided.
Remilia coloured. "It does not! It sounds scary. Regal, even." She huffed.
"You're going to invite Meiling?" Flandre asked, a smile pulling at her features as she processed the rest of Remilia's statement.
Remilia recovered, smiling smugly as she nodded. "Mhm. My little sister wouldn't stop chattering about the pretty red-head we met. So why not? It's gotten quiet since the knights..." She glanced to the suits of armour about the entrance hall, her smile fading for an instant, "left their effects here, and this house is too big for just the two of us, wouldn't you say?" Remilia asked.
"She's gonna live with us?" Flandre cooed.
"Yeah," Remilia confirmed, "Not just a sleep over."
Flandre's shy little smile stayed with Remilia, even as she climbed the steps of the temple complex in a tunic, hose and travelling cloak. She'd found it puzzling that Lihua did not come down from the mountain to meet her, deciding she might have been offended had it been anyone else who had forgotten to meet her.
Then she saw the crack in the paving slabs that travelled up, widened and ran through the great temple's foundations, its curved pavillion shorn in two and twisted out of alignment. Her spirit soured as she listened. There was no chanting. No muted discussions nor battle cries. She couldn't hear the clack and clang of weapon practice, nor could she hear the intoned chanting of the monks. No instructors called out, no elderly brothers offered gentle criticism to their charges.
All she could hear was one fluttering heartbeat.
She recognised the clothes of the monks, but not their faces. She observed that the bodies of the intruders - with their mangled limbs and their cracked body-armour - had been running back towards the temple doors, as though pursued or hounded out by something from within the complex.
She found the owner of the lone heartbeat standing atop a toppled temple tower that now bridged the gap in the earth. Her clothes were bloody and torn, her body shaking as she stared down the roof tiles into the abyss.
"What happened here?" Remilia asked.
"The Will of Heaven came for me." Meiling's whispered.
Remilia frowned, uncertain who or what this Will of Heaven was. "But it did not kill you?" Remilia noted.
Meiling's shoulders quaked as she opened her mouth to speak, only to falter, once, twice. "Leave me." Meiling finally said, her voice turned raw.
"I'm not leaving without you." Remilia told her calmly.
"I'm ill-starred!" Meiling shouted. "You do not want me following you! I bring death to all that meet me! So leave!"
"You don't know what I want-" Remilia started, only for Meiling to silence her.
"I can't! I can't be left alone again, I-I can't-" Remilia saw Meiling's lip wobble, "I can't do this anymore!"
Remilia hesitated then. She knew she didn't know what was wrong, not knowing what to say.
"I'm... not going to leave you." Remilia told her.
"Just-" Meiling managed, her hands closing into shadow-hazed fists, "Be quiet."
"No," Remilia shook her head, "You shall have to force me out if-"
Remilia realised that had been the wrong thing to say as Meiling shoved a crescent of darkness into her, blasting the vampire through the temple's walls in a shower of splinters and busted panelling. She began to right herself, pushing debris off of her as she heard Meiling approach, saw the dark energies singe and catch at the pillars and panels she passed between.
"I have nothing to live for! Nothing to die for! They won't even give me that! What makes you think I have objections to killing you before they tire of tormenting me?! Huh?!" Meiling bellowed. Remilia had heard that piercing ring before in Flandre's voice. The Chinese girl waited, her pained expression lit up by the dark lightning that coruscated around her.
"Because," Remilia said calmly, "You're Hong Meiling."
Meiling barked out a bitter laugh. "You impudent brat! Is that all you have? You don't even know me!" She raved, her hand blitzing forward, her despair finding physical form as the black lightning ripped the temple grounds and screamed through the air. For a moment, Remilia was consumed by the tempest. Meiling's chest tightened as she opened her mouth.
Then she heard that petulant little voice.
"I know you'd never try to hurt me."
The dark energies flickered and died away. The vampire was singed and a spasm now commanded her leading arm, but she still stood, her dominant hand in a fist. "I know they loved you," Remilia mumbled, "and I know Flandre wants to see you."
She saw the wild rage on Meiling's face waver. "I will not follow you!" She spat, a black rainbow blazing into life across her hands.
Remilia could see the thread of fate now, seeing how it ran directly from her clutching fist through the solid band of darkness. Remilia's features hardened, her red-eyed glare focusing on her quarry. "You will follow, or you will be led out of this place! Walk or be dragged, Meiling! I am not above fighting for your life!"
Meiling glanced to the woodland that surrounded the compound wall, seeing the light of dawn highlighting the branches. "You're out of time, runt," Meiling forced out the insult, "You can't beat me before the sun rises."
Remilia unfurled her wings and bared her fangs. "Don't blink." She warned. She tensed, vanished - and reappeared inside Meiling's defences, her fists ablur.
London, 7th Night
The oppressive darkness that had flooded Voile was beaten back - candle by trembling candle - until there was enough wax-light to read by. But the sounds of battle - of gunshots and the screams of men and fairytales - resounded just outside the jagged remains of the window frames.
"Attend me, Sakuya." Patchouli's voice was painfully thin and bubbly with phlegm.
Sakuya set down the candle she'd been using to spread the light the others before moving to the sunlit table where Patchouli lay. The magician was wrapped in a blanket of water, the liquid given a roiling, uncertain shape as the sliver of sunlight bathed her. Both spells had been enacted by Koakuma at Patchouli's instruction, and her lack of familiarity with the elemental arts was showing. Koakuma and Flandre stood nearby, both of them looking uncertain of themselves. Sakuya offered them a reassuring smile before regarding the librarian. "Miss Patchouli?"
"Koa will prepare our magical defenses to stop the djinn. Flan?" Patchouli sighed.
"Yeah?" Flandre tried to keep the wobble out of her voice.
"Your sister is in trouble. And you're the only one who can do anything about it." Patchouli managed. Even with Koakuma's iteration of her healing spells stabilising her, it was an effort to speak.
"Y-yeah." Flandre managed.
"You and Sakuya must rescue her." Patchouli said.
"Miss Patchouli," Koakuma started, "The mansion is surrounded, and you're in no state to transport anything."
Patchouli took Koakuma's objections in stride, her attention remaining on the maid. "Sakuya, can you find a way through the siege, and take Flandre with you? With that power of yours?"
"Yes." Sakuya answered promptly.
Even so," Koakuma began anew, "Mistress Remilia would be wroth if she were to discover that you endangered-" She stopped, seeing the put-out expression on Patchouli's pale face. Her master didn't have the strength to talk over her familiar.
"Flandre? Will you do this?" Patchouli asked.
Flandre nodded quickly, her eyes full of tears as she clutched Lævateinn so hard it started to writhe. "Yeah."
"Good. Ready yourself." Patchouli murmured, her purple eyes signalling her interest to Sakuya that she'd speak to her. The maid obliged her, casually leaning down to bring her ear closer to the magician's lips.
"Flandre may not understand the situation, but she's strong. Terribly strong." Patchouli paused, as though reconsidering this course of action as her tongue wetted her lips, "You must guide her."
"I shall have to kill Dreadshanks." Sakuya said quickly and quietly.
"Dreadshanks?" Patchouli asked.
"Yes. I know not his origin, but he's... a blank slate for them to inscribe. Back at the veteran's hall, it's evident that they fitted him to fight vampires. I shall have to put him down."
Patchouli nodded, too tired to challenge her. "You need to destroy the djinn's lamp as well. It will be able to find us, again and again. Destroy it, and we will be safe, and its magical hold on you will be gone. Can you destroy the lamp?"
Sakuya contemplated the question. "As things are, with London made a battleground? I can reach their sanctum and do just that." She said.
Patchouli's purple eyes studied her. "Do you swear on it? I cannot win against the djinn if his lamp is intact. If you fail, he will come in here and kill me, Meiling, Koakuma-"
"I swear it on my life." Sakuya said firmly.
Patchouli's tired eyes looked her up and down. "You've changed, Sakuya." Patchouli noted.
Sakuya turned her head, her silver-eyed gaze meeting Patchouli's. "I suppose I have." Sakuya replied with a gentle smile.
"What do you suppose has happened to you?" Patchouli asked.
Sakuya thought of the amateurish drawing still pressed inside of Osbourne's book that still lay on the floorboards of his house. "I've wearied of the hand destiny has dealt me."
Despite the fatigue and the pain, Patchouli managed a smile. "Well said, if a little flowery," Patchouli sighed pleasantly, though in a flash, her tone froze over, "Do not fail in protecting Flandre. I will know, and I will seek you out."
Sakuya took the threat in stride, lowering her head deferentially. "I understand."
"Good. There are knives of every kind in the armoury," Patchouli breathed thinly, glancing to Flandre and back to Sakuya, "Look after one another. Please."
The maid and the little sister left the library.
"Miss Patchouli, how are we to prepare for him?" Koakuma asked.
There was silence.
"...Patchouli?" Koakuma murmured, hurrying to the table.
"...Crystal ball... sealing circle..." The witch whispered.
The little devil caught on. "Right. Right..." Koakuma whispered, turning to the smokey orb that sat alone on an outlying desk.
Patchouli hadn't come to her aid.
Remilia stared down her remaining arm that she'd pushed through the bars. Her pale fingers pressing on wizened knuckles, trying to help Mister Osbourne put pressure on the wound in his belly even as she averted her eyes to it.
"You called out for Miss Patchouli." Mister Osbourne whispered, his voice painfully thin.
"Mmm." Remilia sounded.
Despite the pitch-black darkness, Remilia's night sight could see Mister Osbourne's exasperated roll of the eyes. Every word must be an effort for him. So she continued, "She has a spell for everything. She can normally see me, send me weaponry, spit my enemies on icicles, stalactites. I'm uh..." She paused, "Worried if she's okay."
"She must be dear to you." Mister Osbourne managed.
"Yeah," Remilia managed, "And if she's... in a bad way, then I suspect Meiling... she must be hurt, too. Which means Flan, s-she's in trouble, and I'm-"
Mister Osbourne's chin lifted a touch. "You're what, miss Scarlet?"
"I-I'm useless here..." She managed, the strain palpable in her voice.
Mister Osbourne's expression remained dour. "You are strong. Surely you can make it out of here?" He murmured.
Remilia turned her head before shunting it against the bars. There was a dull ring, the slightest give, but nothing more. "Can't. I need blood. I need blood to manifest such spells, and I am low," Remilia blinked hard, realising she was out of tears to shed, "So, so low..." She choked out.
Mister Osbourne's head turned towards the sound of her voice. "Don't be, Remilia. You've done so well..."
That coaxed a bitter laugh from Remilia. "From beginning to end, I have stumbled and stuttered my way through this wretched city! To, to bargain with these lowly humans, and I'm... repaid with animosity! Betrayal! Failure..." Her head lowered, her shoulders shaking even as she lent her weakened grasp to holding Mister Osbourne together.
"You do yourself a disservice, miss Remilia." He sighed. When she did not stir, he went on. "From the beginning... when you were... turned, so abruptly, to rise again in an unfamiliar house in Wallachia... you've achieved much since then. You survived battles. Studied spells. All for the sake of your sister. You protected her."
"What else was I to do?" Remilia snapped, "And what good did I do? My sister, she's unhappier than ever, all my weapons and magic count for naught now! I have failed, definitively, completely..." Remilia began to mutter.
Mister Osbourne intoned his words, determined to be heard over Remilia's snarlings. "You found friends across the globe, ones that you care for, and they care for you. I have seen you move from strength to strength to strength, eclipsing any student I've taught. You made me care again!" He shouted at last, the sudden bark stilling Remilia's noise, her red-eyes glowing, searching his for some confidence trick or white lie.
He languished against the wall, his eyes wetted as they stared in her approximate direction. "You made me care again... and you made her care again."
Remilia knew of whom he spoke of.
Mister Osbourne managed a wan smile. "You did well in this place. You displayed temperance with me. You persevered with Olivia de Vere. You brought the Barnes' to the table-"
"Who repaid my foolishness with schemes and treachery-" Remilia began.
But Mister Osbourne would not be interrupted, despite his mortal wounds. "-Your only fault was a lack of vigilance," He countered, his voice shaky with fatigue, "They broke the peace. You did right. Right by all of us."
Remilia shut her eyes, shaking her head. "Thank you for the kind words, but-"
"I know," Mister Osbourne interrupted, "It makes your next course of action so much harder, doesn't it?"
Remilia felt her stomach lurch at his words, fighting to keep her voice from wavering. "Y-yeah."
He forced himself to smile. "Must be fate."
Mister Shaw was a regular at the chateau. A doctor of mediocre skill in the daytime, his activities at night had led him to accepting invitations from the Barnes. Now he was more interested in vivisection, and the agony inflicted when sulfuric ether and other anaesthetics were denied, and gave demonstrations between courses within the Barnes' abode. He also showed up late, and often drunk.
It had been easy for the servant girl to lure him away from the front with a promise and a wink. He had smiled stupidly behind his glitzy mask and kept on smiling, even as Sakuya produced the knife. Ten inches of silver, perfectly balanced, magically forged, strengthened and enchanted, the initial's 'S' and 'D' etched into the metal near the hilt. She slid the blade home just as he realised something was wrong, guiding his convulsing bulk to the floor of the alleyway, rolling him over onto his bloodstained front.
"Okay, you can come out now." Sakuya said softly as she wiped her blade on mister Shaw's jacket.
Flandre Scarlet shuffled into the moonlight, looking down at the prostrate human. "Who's he?" She asked.
"A very bad man who's taking a rest." Sakuya replied quietly, sheathing the blade before removing Shaw's mask, "He was going to hurt your sister."
Flandre lowered her chin. "Oh." She said, her voice low. "Is that why you broke him?" She asked.
Sakuya turned, her mouth a thin line. "Yes. That is why I broke him." She gave pause as she contemplated their approach. "There will be more to break, as well. More bad men and women who want to hurt your sister. Will you be ready for that?" She asked as she stepped close.
"Yeah." Flandre murmured.
"I mean it," Sakuya took a knee, staring into Flandre's uncertain face, "You will have to move through the mansion alone whilst I dispose of the djinn. You can't trust anyone in that place. Break them if they try to take you." She raised the mask, delicately resting it on Flandre's nose.
The vampire nodded, more certain this time. "I'll find my sister."
It was enough for Sakuya. The servant girl took Flandre to the entrance of the Chateau, the front doors flanked by two steely-jawed guards in waist coats, one brandishing a book of names.
"Ursula Nygard Owen." Sakuya introduced her underneath a false name that got a frown out of Flandre.
One of the guards began to defer, the other checking the book in his hand. "Late arrival." He pointed out.
"She's not the only one striving to be fashionably late. I saw Shaw the surgeon venturing into an alleyway." Sakuya replied.
"Owen isn't on the list, girl." The guard said, leafing through his book.
"Not on the list of invitations, no." Sakuya replied.
The guard caught the implication. "The servant's entrance out of commission?" He asked archly.
"It is a long way, and we're running low on time." Sakuya responded.
"Where's my sister?" Flandre asked. The two guards glanced her way, then back to Sakuya.
"She's waiting inside. Will you allow us in? I would not want to let mister Barnes wait any longer, or have to explain what kept me." Sakuya argued.
That did it. They knew the role the servant girl played, and had no interest in giving Barnes cause for upset. The guard with the book waved them along into the antechamber, into a group of clucking courtiers and guests.
"Where's my sister?" Flandre asked aloud, bringing attention to herself. "Where's Remilia Scarlet?"
"Oh, I know where she is, little one," One of the gaunter guests came forward with a grin, "What say we go and see her together?" He offered his hand.
Flandre's red-eyes gaze upd through the dark eyeholes of the borrowed carnival mask, before she glanced to Sakuya. "Now?"
"Yes, now's the time," Sakuya determined, "Get to the banquet hall. It connects to the dungeons. I will come find you once I've completed the task Patchouli has charged me with."
The guest who had offered his hand to Flandre frowned, slighted. "Come along now, miss." He insisted, his fingers seizing the vampire's cold arm.
He heard the blood rush to his ears, felt his heart constrict and tighten as Flandre turned on him, her teeth bared, her own hand closing-
And like that, he was gone, sheets of blood obscuring his collapsing remains.
The courtiers stood there, stupified before one of them screamed. They scattered, the guards hurrying in through the door as they drew silver. They did not see the servant girl, she was gone. The blonde-haired vampire turned on them and they too were crushed.
As their pulp fell to the ground, Flandre headed towards the Chateau's centre, demanding directions and killing as she went.
Meiling had sensed the duo leave, their movements purposeful and in harmony, their breathing steady. That would have to be enough for her.
The soldiers that survived the fairies fusillade rushed to meet her in a ragged, bayonet-tipped charge. The guandao swept another man off his feet before she crunched the pommel of the polearm into a soldier's face. A bayonet followed her retreat, her blade sweeping up and severing a rifle stock and the fingers clutching it. She ignored the scream. There wasn't enough time to kill cleanly. There were simply too many. Their numbers were barely held in check by the irregular fire that the scarlet fairy maids laid down, and Meiling's aptitude in anticipating the next attack. She could even determine which of the soldiers would be her next opponent seconds in advance because of her ability.
She was sensitive to qi. The breath of life. The flow of vital force that all living things inhaled and expelled. Her mastery of her own qi allowed her to project it from her limbs to hit harder, move faster, to shield and strike and blast through her foe. But it was her ability to read her enemy's qi, that was what turned the co-ordinated midnight assault into a stuttering, grinding mess. Every lunge was anticipated and punished, every shot missed its mark or richocheted off of a band of rainbow light. Every time one of her enemies marshalled the vicious courage required to get behind her or try to plant his bayonet in her stomach, she rounded on them and struck them dead, sometimes before they could move, sometimes as they blundered into her bladework. Ideally, she could sense the most danger in the crowd and pre-emptively end it before she was cut in turn.
This situation was far from ideal. She had shallow cuts and superficial bruises in half a dozen places, and even as she wove between blows and dispatched the soldiers, she knew the Russian was close. Him, and the invisible foe that had struck her down with a fever.
"To me! To me, my men!" She heard the parade-ground shout. She saw it came from a paunchy, sabre-waving man with a red jacket under his dark coat. The soldiers hung on by his word and example alone. He was their lynchpin. She began to walk, her walk becoming a run.
Beneath the ruined window-frames and behind the banisters, Megane the fairy cried out to hold fire. "Don't shoot, you might hit Meiling! Load the guns, but hold it!"
Major Henry Evans bawled for order, desperation fuelling his red-faced tirade as he cajoled his soldiers back towards the mansion. "Through the gunsmoke, men! Take the spoils of war!" He roared, smacking and striking at them with the flat of his blade. Things looked bad, but there was his own reward to consider. A seat at Edwin's table. Neighbours of a noble pedigree. The oppurtunity to advance himself, to drink his fill. He started to salivate, starting to smile as he watched his men storm up the garden path. There was no way some antiquated spearman - spearwoman, in fact - could match a massed bayonet charge.
A cluster of soldiers fell in front of him, the red-headed gatekeeper storming through the bloody hole in the ranks her guan dao had carved. Storming past them.
Storming straight at him.
"Fire at will!" He screamed as his sword chopped the air, the soldiers all around him opening fire, the shield of rainbow light shining and hissing with every deflection as it rushed him.
Few of his men stayed. The bravest ones died, disdainfully dispatched with sweeps of the polearm before she aimed a stroke at him. His sword practice in his younger days as a commissioned officer allowed him to deflect the girl's blow. He thought he was close enough, that he could exploit her impetuousness and commit to a riposte that his alcohol-fattened body had the muscle memory for but little else.
But he realised too late that she'd pulled the blow. He'd felt it.
With precise poise, Meiling stepped back beyond reach, the sabre slashing at nothing but air as the guandao's backswing swept over the shorter weapon and on into the major's neck.
"Evans has lost his head." Sergei reported, feeling Lady Midday's hand grip his shoulder to the point of hurting.
"They have cannon." She murmured.
"It was to be expected," Edwin responded to Sergei, his twisted smile still on display, "And to our advantage. The gatekeeper tires, and the strain on our coffers has been lessened significantly."
Edwin made to step forward towards the carnage.
"Boss," Sergei said suddenly, "Let me go. She's not worth your time."
Edwin glanced at him, the darkness in those sockets searching the Russian's eyes. Whatever he found, it seemed to satisfy him, his sharp chin nodding. "Go on then, sort her out. Signal the attack proper."
"But the cannon, iron-slinging-" Lady Midday hissed, her fingers painfully digging into Sergei's shoulder.
"Shhh, they won't shoot near her." Sergei responded as he strode purposefully towards the melee, his eyes meeting hers as the soldiers fled past him.
The pommel of her guandao struck the bricks of the path, the blade dark with blood, her discerning eye on him.
"Hello, Russian!" She called out.
"Just a little closer." Lady Midday murmured, the weight on his shoulder increasing as she bunched up.
He stopped, sensing the noonwraith's consternation rather than seeing it. "Chinese girl. Good to see you."
Meiling beamed, the blood-streaked smile genuine and all the more unsettling for it. "I wish I could say the same!" Meiling declared cheerfully.
"My friends would like to see your mistress." Sergei told her, gesturing to the crowd that formed a semi-circle around the ruined gate.
"Bad hour to do so. If you'd make an appointment for tomorrow?" Meiling replied.
"What in God's name are you doing, my instrument?" Lady Midday asked quietly.
Sergei ignored the ghost. "They are very insistent. Will you not step to one side?" He asked.
Meiling smiled. "Will you not stop your attack?"
Sergei looked behind him to the ranks of knifemen on Edwin's payroll. "It's rather my job."
Meiling shrugged, her eyes flitting back and forth through the ranks. These men and women were nothing like the soldiers she had dispatched, who had been wrongfooted by the circumstances, the ground, their opponent and the grim undertaking they had signed up for. The troops formed up behind Sergei were true wolves, steady and hungry. Seasoned cut-throats familiar with midnight killing. It troubled her that they looked unphased by her martial display. Her eyes returned to Sergei as she maintained her smile. "Just as it's my job to stop you."
Sergei frowned, pausing. Lady Midday took the oppurtunity to speak, "She's made her bed. Let her die in it. Honestly, what is there to be said, if she will not-"
Sergei's arm shot up, his next words for Meiling. "Last chance. Move, or be cut down." At his words, the gathering tide tensed, some wearing smiles as demented as their master's.
Meiling's expression softened, raising a hand as though offering it. "I was rather hoping to cross fists with you again, before we are parted." Meiling said, the admission awkward and softly spoken.
That took Sergei aback. He had recalled their last bout. He had enjoyed the demands it had put on his body, despite the feverish heat he'd felt. "It is rather late." He answered.
"I can't imagine it's too late for you." Meiling told him, the words strangely tender. His brow tightened as he tried to read her. She wasn't the servant girl, who doggedly seemed to search for the right answer with every question, nor was she the vampire, who seemed to hold herself back lest she pour her feelings into her words to the point of overflow.
"She's putting you at ease for a reason." Lady Midday whispered.
Sergei frowned harder, his voice a whisper. "No."
"She is, she is. She must be opening you up for their cannons. Christ, opening both of us up for that," Lady Midday insisted, digging her knee into his back as she went on, "Or she's buying time, delaying us, she's preparing something, a trick, a trap-"
"Be quiet for a moment." Sergei sighed.
"Will you meet me here?" Meiling persisted, her hand lowering to indicate the fractured garden path, her blue eyes appealing to his.
"No. Don't ruin this, my dear, you mustn't, you can't," Lady Midday hissed, her voice fiendishly hot against his skin, "She does this to kill you! To kill me! She is an agent of the devil! Signal the attack!"
Sergei's hand was still raised aloft, knowing that whether the gatekeeper intended it or not, this was a distraction. His arm swayed, knowing all he had to do was drop it and the handsome, red-haired girl would eventually vanish beneath the mob of murderers at his command. She knew that too, that his say-so would end her life. Then how was she so tranquil?
Why was she still smiling at him?
His arm bent back a fraction, faltering, before it slowly lowered as he assumed his stance. He saw Meiling's honest smile, his own features fighting not to mimic it.
"Don't do this." Lady Midday whispered.
Sergei ignored her, his heel grinding into the paving slab as he shuffled forward.
"You got me close enough, you weak, pathetic boy." Lady Midday spat, her heel kicking off of Sergei's shoulder with enough force to send him staggering. Her scythe sliced down, but Sergei's receding tether held her blow a vital inch back. Meiling flinched backwards, the tip of the noonwraith's scythe hooking down past the guandao's stave, missing Meiling's beret by a hair. The spectre viciously yanked back, her blade ripping the shaft from Meiling's fingers and sending the weapon skittering across the grounds.
"God damn you, boy." Lady Midday cursed as she turned the blade for a backhand slash that would rise up and rip the recoiling Meiling in two.
1627 AD, Wudang Mountain Temple Complex
Meiling blinked disjointedly as she emerged from the oblivion of unconsciousness. She couldn't contain the groan that her bruised and battered body pushed out of her.
"She lives." Remilia Scarlet said quietly behind her. From above her.
Meiling lay with her head in Remilia's lap, the shafts of sunlight like an array of speartips, surrounding them and hemming them together in the ruins of the temple. "Why... go to such lengths?" She whispered.
"I don't know." Remilia said.
Meiling felt her brow furrow, a sudden pain arching her back. "'You don't know'?" She repeated, her mouth opening to pile on vitriol when she felt the shiver pass through Remilia's body.
"I don't know. I-I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know why you feel this way. I don't know what to say to make you feel better and I wish I did. I wish I did." Remilia murmured.
Meiling didn't know what to say to that. She'd been exiled before. Abandoned. At best, she'd been tolerated in the temple, save for a nun who had passed long ago. No-one had fretted this much on her account.
"Fate guaranteed our meeting," Remilia managed, her cold fingers framing Meiling's face, "but I can't force you to stay. I don't want to. I'd just... feel so much poorer to not have you at my side..."
Meiling's brow flickering. "What do you want?" She found herself asking.
Remilia sniffed loudly. "Guh... I don't want to feel alone anymore, like you? I don't want Flan to feel that way, either. I want family. I think you do too, you just- maybe you haven't found yours yet. Maybe Flan and I might..."
As Remilia hesitated, Meiling shut her eyes. The thought of Flandre's unabashed grin brought a smile to Meiling's face. Remilia allowed a shuddering laugh to escape her, "Ugh. I had a speech prepared, y'know, for the humans, a-and it was gonna be really, really good. It would've convinced them to release you, and you to-to join me-"
"Promise not to leave me." Meiling demanded, inwardly cursing the crack in her voice.
Remilia squeezed her, her hand lowering, offering her little finger. "Only if you promise the same, okay? Now come on. Flan's waiting."
London, 7th Night
A gun behind Meiling roared, and a shower of shrapnel struck something solid in the air, the bullets crackling and popping across a glowing, shrieking ghost, the scythe-wielding arm in spasm.
Meiling started, her blue eyes lifting. Her body moved, springing upwards.
"Lady!" Sergei shouted a warning, seeing ribbons of light follow Meiling's blurring leg strike. The spectre raised her scythe in time, Meiling's shin clanging off of the shaft. She landed, already pursuing, only aborting when Sergei's fist shot forward.
Her arm guided Sergei's thrusting hand past her, turning fast, her elbow forcing him onwards before she had to sidestep another downward stroke of the scythe. She had a second to decide how to stay alive.
She had to fend off both human and spirit. The scythe-wielding spectre - she hoped - couldn't use her weapon properly close up, but she could fly beyond Meiling's reach.
The human couldn't, however.
She rushed in, wheeling Sergei's strike away before slamming her wrist up for his throat. He turned in time to make it glance, though her fingers raked down his neck. His other hand came around in a hook, but Meiling's arm was raised to shield her head before she crunched it into his nose. He backed, throwing a tight uppercut that caught her stomach, the impact almost making her feet leave the ground.
She coughed hard, seeing him rally and begin to swing back on her. She couldn't box or brawl with him, he was too strong - but she couldn't let him get too much distance, either. And she certainly couldn't stand still, with the spectre waiting in the wings.
She swayed as though drunk, her right shooting up and flicking his chin upwards, his haymaker missing her by a breath. He cursed, his hand opening as the other reached for her throat-
The closed beak of her fingers chiselled into his leading bicep before snapping back, wheeling his next grasping hand away, moving past it, checking the position of the spectre. She kept moving, weaving, channeling the inscrutable flow of the dragon as she kept the human between herself and the silhouette with its now smouldering chestful of iron. Sergei was like a stone, powerful, sturdy, but slow and inflexible. In a contest of strength, he could win.
But to Meiling, he was an enemy for later - and an obstacle for his partner.
"Will you move?!" Lady Midday screamed at Sergei.
"If I leave, she gets you!" Sergei shouted back, his upper lip dark with blood. He knew his Lady was not used to fighting beyond the surprise attack, unfamiliar with the pain involved, the grit that was needed. He threw another wild punch, aware that Edwin was watching, cursing as his wrist was caught. He was turned and levered by his elbow. Forced to the ground. She was in a place to break his arm, but at least she was immobile, wide-open for his Lady-
But she didn't break his arm. Instead, he felt her stamp on his back. It barely hurt him. Pain hadn't been her objective.
It had been elevation.
"She can't get me," Lady Midday had begun to argue, her scythe at the zenith of its swing, "She can barely see m-" her words stopped in her chest as Meiling sailed up and landed the toe of her training shoe against her wounded, sparking breast. The sound of her qi channelling down her leg and into the spectre's chest was like a weapon discharge, a silence-breaking 'bang' that sent both spectre and scythe cannoning across the path, the invisible creature dragging and shattering flagstones with its crash landing.
"Lady!" Sergei's scream was barely enough warning for Meiling to block the blow, fist to fist.
Lady Midday felt her gnarled spirit shiver and flicker as she tried to rise. She could see Meiling was trying to disengage from Sergei. Trying to keep eyes on her.
Stupid decision. Lady Midday raised her hand, staring through the arch of her finger and thumb at Sergei.
She spoke a word that throbbed down the tether and banged through his mind, and like that, Sergei became another person.
Sergei's fist slipped her wheeling block and took Meiling beneath the cheek, who brought her arms in a cross to block his feral kick, her attention locked down.
Lady Midday looked down at her pellet riddled midsection, grimacing as she reached in and scooped the sparking, burning chunks of iron from her center, feeling her fingers blister at the touch. Once she was invisible again, she'd have her. She made sure to smile through the pain for Meiling's sake as she discarded the pellets that had illuminated her, rising from the ground and into the midnight air.
Meiling staggered back, having to meet rather than deflect Sergei's assault. She could see the spittle in the corner of his mouth and the mad light in his eyes. She was forced to feel his power now, his speed matching hers as the madness took hold. Pain flared across her jaw as his knuckles turned her chin. She swung out of the way of Sergei's haymaker before her fingers speared his arm again. She used her conditioned fingers like a fork, spearing into his right bicep whenever she could, though she paid for it, his fist buffeting her ribs, his knuckles glancing off of her face, his fingers gripping her throat.
He had her then. Her eyes widened as her last breath was trapped down her throat, the Russian's bloody-nosed snarl in her face. Her control of her qi was impaired, the breath of life limited to what she had on her last inhale. In a panic, her fingers went for his throat, his eyes, his jaw, but he drove her down, keeping his neck beyond her grasp. In seconds, the scythe would come down, or the black edges in her vision would smother her, the power in her arms would drain away, she would die...
"Now come on. Flan's waiting."
She imagined these calloused fingers finding Flan.
Her fingers left Sergei's face, flying down his arm to the hands that choked her. Her digits dug between his ring and little finger. Meiling focused the meagre qi she had from her last stifled breath as she pried the finger up, finding purchase-
With a rotten crack, she bent it into a hideous right angle. Like that, the pressure slackened. Sergei shrieked, his hold loosening for a second.
Meiling gasped, that surge of vital breath followed her fingers into his bicep, the weakened muscle spasming hard as her spiritual energy lanced through and shocked muscle fibres. As Sergei reeled, Meiling closed, her fingers flicking his eyes, his head recoiling as he bellowed in pain, his left clutching his ruined right arm. This was it. The coup de grâce. She drew her arms back, readying to strike.
She feinted forward.
The hot breeze blew over them both as the Lady swept in from behind.
"Die." Lady Midday said coldly. She pulled the scythe back and swung it round to lop off Meiling's head.
The gatekeeper rounded on her, her sea-blue eyes flickered up to meet her. There wasn't fear, shock, not even surprise.
She could see her, and she was not afraid.
Eye-contact broke as Meiling ducked low. The scythe missed, burning the air above the gatekeeper's back. The Chinese girl's back leg went up, arcing up over her head like the tail of a scorpion in a feat of flexibility and pounding the foot into the noonwraith's collarbone. The Lady sputtered, the chambered round of qi firing down through her spectral form. She recoiled, thinking to retreat, to fly away, but her body - such as it was - refused to shift, the core of her being disrupted. She lost altitude, barely keeping her form.
To her horror, she saw that the gatekeeper wasn't stopping. She was sweeping in, reaching up, her blue eyes glaring fiercely. In her last moments, Lady Midday wondered how she'd been seen, what mistake she'd made.
Hong Meiling could sense malign intent at a hundred meters. The Lady Midday had concealed her presence well, but the fairies had illuminated her in that last blast of gunfire long enough for the gatekeeper to know what bone-grey aura to look for, its acrid scent, the malevolence of the noonwraith rippling all around, made conspicuous to Meiling's qi mastery. She'd been lucky that the scorpion kick had landed. She doubted she'd get another set-up. Already, the spectre's arm twitched, switching for the backswing.
Meiling's hips twisted. The chest turned. The legs lunged. Shoulder, arm and fist sailed in as the gatekeeper opened her mouth and bellowed. As she shouted her battle cry, her qi fired through her arm, flaring with rainbow light as both body and spirit - both hardened and honed over centuries of hardship and training - moved together, throwing everything she had behind a single mountain-breaking punch.
Lady Midday was wizened with age and hatred, her storied spirit emerging from a resentful death in eastern Europe, her grudge nursed with the sowing of fever and murder throughout the farmsteads of Serbia and here in the streets of London. She withstood Meiling's attack for all of a second before the blazing fist tunnelled through her, the qi burning through her core. Ectoplasm blasted down the path and sheeted the flagstones in ghostly matter, the spectre screaming as the spirit energy unravelled her form entirely.
She turned on the human, raising her fists, realising then there was no need to. He was on his hands and knees, his eyes suddenly full of tears. "Lady...?"
Meiling breathed in properly now, resisting the urge to pitch forward and place her hands on her knees.
"You killed her." Sergei whispered, his eyes shining, his brow furrowed, suddenly so young and so fragile, the Russian looking as lost and as uncertain as any child.
"Freed you." Meiling said between breaths. Her posture relaxed, extending her arm, offering him her hand. She heard him sniffle. She saw wide, fearful eyes.
"It's okay," She assured him, "It's going to be-"
A gunshot rang out.
The small, blonde-haired intruder rounded the corner. She tracked blood over the carpet, her hands gripping the black stave of the Lævateinn.
Before her, great iron doors loomed, so grand and formidable that they looked like they belonged on the outside of the chateau.
"I'm afraid you aren't invited," The intoned voice threw a hunch into Flandre's posture as it carried on, "to this closed event."
"Where are you?" Flandre asked, her ruby eyes sliding from wall to shadowy wall. Then she caught movement on the door, seeing the almond-shapes of iron open, revealing glittering pupils, the split in the door bisecting the smile of grey, iron lips.
"I am where you are not supposed to be, child," The doors rumbled, "So if you'd be so kind as to leave..."
Flandre swallowed, her brow furrowing. "No. I'm here to collect my sister."
"My, such an stout expression," The doors soothed, "But I'm afraid you're mistaken, young lady. No sister of yours lies behind these doors, and if she did, she wouldn't come back, not whole, not at all."
"Let me see, then." Flandre said with a pout.
The doors sighed. "You must not be aware of the concessions I am already granting you. You've broken into the house of my master and killed staff and guests both. To let you live is more than you deserve, if I may be so-"
"Let me through!" Flandre insisted, bringing Lævateinn to bear, a livid red eye opening within the heart of its stave, "I know you have Remilia in there-"
The strut of diamond chain pounded the carpet before spearing up for Flandre's face. She scowled at the fast approaching linkage, focusing-
Her head was snapped skywards by the impact, her body tottering backwards as her carnival mask exploded into fragments. The chain recoiled and retracted to the door, the eyes squeezing closed as the doors revealed its shining teeth, its laugh like stone grinding together.
"So, you're the countess' sister! Not quite as quick as her, I- I see..." The glittering eyes turned from her to the pulse of pain running down its limb, lifting the strand of chain. A length of his adamantine essence hung limply on a break, the linkage cracked open.
No-one had ever cut him like that.
He looked back to the vampire, her teary eyes glaring at him through the fingers clutching her bleeding face.
"Break you." She promised.
Prosechtikos grimaced as he pulled himself from the barrier he had raised, returning to his human avatar that stood in the banquet hall. Even without his consciousness invested in the doors, it would hold long enough for them to marshal a response.
The throng of gathered humans had ceased in their consumption of their starter. A few nervously joked about the screams of panic that resonated from the front of the chateau, though their good humour ran dry when household staff hurried through the hall, nervously unsheathing silver blades as they went.
"Consider the intruder stopped, though..." He trailed off as he regarded Jill, Morgen, and their attendants.
"What?" Jill asked.
"I can't say for how long." Prosechtikos admitted.
"'You can't say for how long'? I thought you were 'the guardian of gods before the world was young'! You can't hold back one enemy?!" Morgen asked.
"She's no mere enemy, she's-"
"A vampire. The vampire's little sister. No human would be brazen enough to attack us, from the front, no less." Jill said, the fingers of one hand locked around her regrown and desleeved arm.
"So it's fair to assume you weren't the one who sent our humans to handle a vampire?" Prosechtikos asked.
Both he and Jill looked to Morgen, who stood with mouth agape. "I-I thought they'd handle it, they have the weapons-"
"Satan wept. You stupid woman." Jill sighed.
"Wha- I -alright, why don't we rely on your kin, then?! Or the gargoyles?!" Morgen retorted.
"I do not deploy my children lightly. Get Dreadshanks. It'll handle this trouble easily." Jill snapped.
The butler spoke up. "Send the red flare up, it'll bring Barnes back. We have the little sister here, after all. I've already reinforced the doors to the antechamber. This uninvited guest will go no further."
Morgen looked mollified, but Jill shook her head, speaking against him. "I've no interest in risking his displeasure. Send out Dreadshanks and crush the invader. He's built for it."
Prosechtikos hesitated, unsure how to phrase his objection. "I think it's premature to reveal our secret weapon, since we don't know what we're facing. A vampire, certainly, but-"
"Will you go and get the beast?!" Jill snapped at him.
"M-mistress Jill-" One of the humans stuttered as Prosechtikos briskly turned and haltingly walked back towards the inner sanctum.
"You put Remilia and the old human in different cell blocks, yes?" Jill asked.
"I-In different cells, y-yes, t-though," Tilghman tried desperately to remember, the fog in his memories rapidly receding as he watched Jill's eyes widen and her lips pull back, "I fear I m-may have placed them in the same block, b-but I'll go-"
His throat caved in beneath her gouging nails. Jill's piercing wail rang in his ears as he crumpled, his hands going for his ruined windpipe. He was left to wretch on the floor as Jill rounded on the banquet hall, the shock and disbelief on the feast-goers faces barely concealed by their masks. They'd never seen one of their patrons so affected.
Jill didn't care about them. She was too busy thinking on Edwin's wishes to preserve Remilia for their allies, the prophesy the vampire had made of Jill's undoing. She could save herself and Edwin both. All she had to do was defy him and risk his ire and lose his favour.
She made her decision.
"Lupo! Valens!" She shouted. Her sons stepped forward, their long, wiry hair cultivated into flowing manes and mutton chops.
"Assemble the pack. Go into the dungeon. Kill Remilia Scarlet and her tutor. Go. Go!"
Her kindred growled their obedience before they moved to accomplish their task. Jill breathed out, her dark eyes catching Morgen's concerned expression.
"Give me that!" She snarled, wrenching the flare gun from Morgen's hands.
Prosechtikos did not hear the orders, hurrying through the hall of memories, ignoring the pleading looks the painting's captives gave him. He walked through the double doors into the bruise-purple cave that was the inner sanctum.
That was where he found Dreadshanks, covered in cuts as its malnourished triangle of a torso arched into the polished wall, trying to get out from beneath the silver knife behind its head.
He saw the wielder of the blade and forced out a sigh. "Nice to see you're back from your little breakdown." Prosechtikos said quietly.
The holder of the knife looked his way, her silver eyes shining. "Close the door, or I end his suffering." The maid demanded.
Prosechtikos seemed to look amused. "Can this wait? This really isn't a good time for... this." He idly turned his hand to indicate Sakuya.
Sakuya stared him down, her eyes lively despite her passive expression. "There will be no better time for this."
Prosechtikos tried to sneer. "Now, girl, our guests are expecting something with a little more meat, and soon. Stop with these games and let's-"
He halted as the creature convulsed, the knife tip twisting in its flesh. The creature silently screamed, shaking with the pain.
"Don't hurt him!" Prosechtikos cried out.
At the acknowledgement of the leverage she held, Sakuya smiled cruelly, glancing to the door. The butler moved to obey, speaking as he did so. "Tell me what you want. Clemency, from Edwin? I can vouch for you-"
"I want Alhajin's lamp. Where is it?" Sakuya asked.
"The mantle, there. Just above the fire, did you not look?" Prosechtikos asked, daring to smile.
"Go to it, toss it into the fire, or I drive this home." Sakuya told him. Prosechtikos weighed the wrath of the djinn and the displeasure of his employer against the beast that writhed beneath the silver blade. He saw Dreadshanks twist and press his shoulders back into the dark matter of the chamber, its maw opening and closing as it silently pleaded.
He went to the roughly hewn mantlepiece, lifting the black lantern before swinging it casually into the fireplace, not bothering to watch as the flames licked the lantern, turning green as they consumed the magical realm within.
"Done." He said.
Sakuya kept the point resting on her captive's nape, smiling grudgingly. "I did not think you would do that."
Prosechtikos shrugged, as though the djinn's newfound vagrancy did not trouble him. "It seems to me you did not think you'd get this far at all."
Sakuya tilted her head, but the knife point did not waver.
"Alhajin is imperiled," Prosechtikos continued, "He's shorn from his demonic powers, and without a home to go to... his curse on you is over, and a second rate magician should be able to destroy a homeless djinn handily. You've killed Barnes' best tool for pursuing you. Recapturing you."
Sakuya's eyes widened at that, watching Prosechtikos' gaze flick to the windows at the back of the sanctum. "I don't have cause to dislike you, servant girl. I will not give chase, if you quit the field now. You could be across the Channel come morning, gone the day after that. Just... spare my boy."
These weren't lies. Prosechtikos had never favoured them. He was right. The djinn's collar magic was inert. The prospect of travelling beyond London's city limits no longer filled her with dread. What's more, they had killed the one she had cared for. That leverage was gone. She didn't need to kill Dreadshanks. He was fitted to battle vampires in this moment, not chase down humans. She could leave. Be free and away from this nightmare.
She felt a tremor in her knife hand.
Patchouli could feel her strength return, but not quickly enough. Her limbs were leaden, her eyelids heavy, her fever only beginning to break when a gale of foul dust blew through the library and over her face. She tried to stay awake as the djinn roared in dismay and charged them. She tried to move as she watched Koakuma bang her hands on the carpet, the sealing circle thrumming to life, engulfing both the devil and the djinn in a torrent of blazing magic. The tower of purple fire shrank, jetting downwards into the crystal ball until it rolled behind the smoke-stained glass, the heat and the fury of Koakuma's trap ending as abruptly as it had started.
An unsettling silence fell over the library.
"Koa'?" She whispered. She managed to drag a heel from the table, the quilt of water still clinging to her as she swung the rest of her off of the table's surface. She saw the chalky sealing sigils surrounding the stormy crystal ball, her stomach turning when she saw the contingency magicks Koakuma had woven into the sequence.