I heard another scoff, this time coming from someone that was not Vincenzo, and I sighed. Rotating my neck around to try and get out all the kinks, I grumbled in my mind. The worst part about being in this room was not the men, although that was pretty bad, it was the need for monsters to constantly be challenging each other.
In this case, I was the only monster here not a Van Helsing. To go even further, I was the only monster here that they thought was human… because you know… Ribbon Girls don't actually exist. Which meant that I was so low on the totem pole that I should be down there with the dirt under their feet.
Not like Knights Security actually had dirt on the floors, it was impeccably clean. But if the looks on their face were anything to go by, I was not making a good impression, or in fact an impression of any kind.
"You are a child playing among adults," said another voice, the aura of an Alpha purposefully leaking out of him, as if to try and intimidate me. Good luck with that. Although human serial killers couldn't be considered in the same league as these men, they were still pretty up there on the intimidation scale.
Plus, my monster was really not impressed with any of them.
"Care to explain?" I asked, looking at the man a few seats down from me.
"Vaclav," he said as a way of introduction. Who would have thunk it… another 'V'. "You seem so proud that you killed a human, but a human is nothing in the face of us."
"Did you miss the part where I found the demons you guys missed? That I killed the demon that you guys didn't?" I asked with a good dose of sarcasm. I mean, yeah, I get it. I do not look like the badest bad in this room. But that doesn't change what I was.
But now I was at a crossroads, did I strangle them with their own tie to show that I was perfectly capable of handling myself, or did I sit here and do nothing? Letting them continue to think that I was nothing more than an unassuming human swimming in a big pond?
There was no reply to my question, but then again, I really didn't think that there would be. You couldn't dispute facts.
Vincenzo sighed and turned his attention back to his son, completely ignoring me as if I didn't exist. When the other men at the table did the same, I realized just how many problems Viktor had on his hands. Each man in this room stood by his father, even though he wasn't the strongest. Even though they should be loyal to Viktor and Viktor alone. That was what it meant to be Head of House.
But here, among memories that spanned centuries, a young buck meant nothing compared to what they were used to. I closed my eyes as if I was giving up when really I was trying to harness the aspect of my powers that allowed me to see the strands of life for everyone here. Maybe if there was enough of a taint, enough rot, it would allow me to kill them off.
Seeing what I wanted to see, I was almost blinded by the brilliant silver light shining in the room. Damnit, not a tainted one in the lot. That was the problem with Van Helsings, they were too…perfect… to be real. Not a tinge of taint, even if they no longer have their pride intact.
Stupid Van Helsings.
"What is your plan, Viktor," demanded Vincenzo. Viktor only scoffed at his father. I am guessing that this was pretty standard in a meeting between the two of them. One was a wolf without teeth while the other one didn't care.
"What is your plan, Vincenzo?" asked Viktor in response, leaning back in his chair like no matter what came out of the other's mouth was of little consequence.
"Kill the demons of course," replied Vincenzo with a wave of his hand like it was the simplest, most obvious thing in the world.
"And how are you going to go about doing that?" prompted Viktor, "Without killing humans by mistake."
That caused Vincenzo to pause, his eyes scanning the room before they landed on me. "Her," was his dumbass reply. I barked out a laugh before I realized that he was serious.
"Did you miss the part where this was not a me problem?" I asked, looking at the man as if he had gone crazy. You know, it was amazing how even the most attractive guy became a lot less after they opened their mouths. Maybe we should implement a law that said men must be seen but not heard.
I sighed. I could not kill them; I could not kill them… maybe if I told myself that over and over again it might actually sink in.
'You cannot kill them,' agreed my monster with a hint of a laugh in her voice. 'But you can leave them to their own path.' I sat up straighter at her words. 'What do you mean?' I asked, trying not to give anything away that I was talking in my head to someone I was not supposed to be talking to.
Because, yeah, I learned that most monsters don't talk inside the heads of the hosts.
'You will have other things to do,' my monster said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. 'There is a lot of taint, not just demon, that needs to be addressed. And apparently, Pandora got her claws into someone before she died. You need to deal with that taint first.'
Her words left me in complete confusion and I ignored the men's disgruntlement with my words. Trying to get more comfortable in the chair, I sat back and watched the chaos in front of me, my brain on something else entirely.
----
The room was completely covered in blood and limbs. There was no way to determine what might have been here before the carnage occurred, but that hardly mattered. Or at least it didn't matter to the sole occupant that was currently wading through an ankle-deep pool of blood. A hand fell off of the once silver chandelier, its weight causing the blood to splash up and around, the ripples that followed its entrance expanding further and further out.
"Maybe I should get a drain in here," said the creature as it sat down on the throne-like chair at the back of the room. Licking the blood off of his fingers one at a time, the… thing… shrugged. "Meh, it would be a shame not to make use of everything." Not bothering to sit up, the creature yelled out into the darkness surrounding him. "Bring them in, they can have what is left over."