They had gotten rid of the Count's assassins half an hour ago, at most. But again he was not only in trouble, but in the worst situation he had found himself in since this damned madness began.
It was hard to believe what his life had become.
It was also hard to believe what he himself had become. That being said. It was all like a living nightmare from which he could wake up at any moment, from which he dreamed, ha, of waking up.
Which would never happen. Of course not.
"Are you all right now? Well, you go ahead," she said, pushing him. She didn't ask questions and didn't mess around with nonsense, beating around the bush, of course not. "I've already saved your ass. And if I die, I'm not coming back."
"Yeah yeah," he muttered, but let himself be pushed away.
She was right, of course. It was the logical thing to do. If she wasn't needed, he could simply offer her to the monster to buy himself at least some time. Unfortunately, he did need her. He didn't trust her, but he trusted her plan, which wasn't the same thing. He was undead, so he should be the one to take more risks. It wasn't about what was fair or unfair, but basic logic. It gave them the best chance of both getting out of here.
His army was on its way. It was still on its way. But in the meantime, at least he could do this. Jonathan took a couple of steps forward on his own. He had to lean against the wall with one hand, to compensate for the loss of one foot, which had yet to regenerate. He was starting to worry about that. Incidentally.
Ah, anyway. The cave (again, if it could be called that) was so narrow that only two of the creature's tentacles could fit. But did they need more when they were only two people?
No.
Even one would suffice, now that they had gotten into this dead end. This damned mousetrap. It would be enough for him, but he wouldn't let it.
He wouldn't let things end here.
The tentacles lunged for him. Thrusting like spears, aimed for his neck and head. Jonathan had no room to dodge. He barely had enough room to extend his arms and carry out a proper attack. But neither could he afford to take the creature's attacks. Any of them would be lethal, the only question would be whether he would die instantly or take a few seconds, just a few seconds, more.
Besides, he'd already sacrificed a foot.
He had no intention of sacrificing one more piece of flesh to save his neck. He'd get the fuck out of here in one piece. Jonathan ducked down, the tentacle passing over his head, grazing his hair. From below, he thrust the sword. Stabbing at the tentacle. Trying to pin it against the wall, which he succeeded. The only question was how long it would last. And that was the most important thing.
Jonathan had no illusions about winning when he couldn't even see the creature, only a few of its limbs. The only thing he intended to do, that he could do, was to buy time.
He jumped back, driven by his instinct.
In that way he avoided, albeit barely, the tentacle piercing his neck. But he didn't prevent all damage. He came close, but didn't manage it.
Instead of his neck, it pierced his shoulder.
Close enough, too.
He had avoided certain death, losing the time it took for him to regenerate, for this cursed power to bring him back to life, moreover.
He had narrowly avoided it. But more importantly, he was now trapped.
Caught by the tentacle.
Like an idiot, what he did was to grab the tentacle, to pull it out. As if he could so easily tear himself away from such a huge thing. Something gave ground, but it wasn't the tentacle.
It was Jonathan himself.
Because the creature was pulling him.
Toward the cave entrance.
Towards itself, and certain doom.
Ironically, he was saved by the very creature itself.
To be more specific. While one tentacle was pulling him, the other had continued its work: scrambling, trying to tear itself away from the wall along with the sword. Without any care.
So, along the way, he was crushed.
By pure coincidence, that tentacle crushed him against the wall.
Stopping his march to perdition, though it was only for a few moments. The other tentacle contracted, leaving him a clear path.
It hurt. Of course it did.
His shoulder ached as if he'd been shot: no, worse.
He'd been shot more times than he could count, but this was worse. He no longer had a shoulder. The pain created an illusion that allowed him to believe otherwise, but in reality it was as if it was no longer attached to his body.
Nothing but a useless piece of flesh. A liability.
Jonathan gritted his teeth hard.
Like his entire body, after his rebirth. He had been granted unimaginable power and the closest thing to immortality that existed, but this weak body, without the necessary experience, was nothing more than a burden. A miracle that he had made it this far in the first place.
The monster pulled him out of the cave.
And Elizabeth came after them. Naturally. Though scared shitless, if Jonathan lost, then she was finished too. Something had to be done. She struck three times at the tentacle that had a hold on him.
There was no fourth strike. There wasn't because the tentacle returned it in spades, sweeping her away. Elizabeth went flying, sliding, almost ending up back in the water, within reach of that monster. Jonathan had the feeling that while it had gotten rid of her, it had been an unconscious act.
An accident.
The tentacle was bringing him closer and closer to the sea, where the creature was waiting for him. Jonathan had the feeling that if he sank into the water, he would never find his way to the surface again, ever.
He couldn't give up. He couldn't.
But Elizabeth's attempts had been to no avail and his own weren't doing much better. Face down (because yes, he had ended up hanging upside down), he attacked the tentacle that held him, swinging the sword again and again, tireless. Without seeing any result. Or any progress.
Oh, his sword slashed the tentacle here and there. But any wound would close soon after. His sword might as well be rubber, it wouldn't make much difference.
I don't want to die like this. Not like this, damn it. And not today.
Had the time come?
Time to cut off the other foot, too? But without both feet, he could be left for dead, too. At best, he would fall to the ground for a few seconds, and the creature would retrieve him immediately. Because he could only crawl. And not even too fast.
Besides, between the blinding pain, the blood loss and the bell, motherfucker wouldn't stop, he was seriously afraid he'd lose consciousness in the attempt.
No. No. No, that wasn't an option.
But there had to be something.
He refused to accept defeat so soon!
At last.
At last they were here, his soldiers, his army of undead. But...
Just as he had feared, they weren't going to be of much use. Nearly a dozen were crushed with a single movement of a single tentacle. Not all had died instantly, but none would recover from it.
Just one of the tentacles. Yes, indeed.
In the cave, the monster had been limited to two tentacles. Outside there were six, seven, well, and who knows how many more waiting beneath the waters.
The creature itself hadn't even shown itself yet.
Killing something he couldn't even see was impossible, but diving into the water to find and kill it was just as unthinkable.
Please at least give me time to get out of here.
As his soldiers, who knew no fear, dove straight into what could very well be a meat grinder for them, Jonathan continued to work on freeing himself. Cutting off the tentacle. Not the other foot.
Just the tentacle. It was very thick, but a "small" cut was enough.
He just needed the cut to be wide enough for him to slide out the rest of the way. Nothing else. He didn't have to and couldn't just cut it off like that, but that, at least, that should.... Should!
Yes!
Yes, fuck it!
He fell about ten meters to the ground. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs. But it had been so close to being an absence of air, not a lack. An absence, complete and total.
Forever.
He felt a sting in one foot, and for a moment he thought he'd sprained his ankle on top of it, but when he looked around, there was nothing. Literally. The foot he'd cut hurt.
He saw why right away.
It was starting to regenerate. Finally.
Healing hurt.
How could it not. Everything in this world brought its own drawbacks. Elizabeth was at Jonathan's side practically instantly, grabbing him by the shoulders, pulling him up and forward, forward, forward. The soldiers were, at least, serving as a distraction. But before all this was over, he would have none. He would be left with empty hands, just as he had started.
They fled.
They simply fled back to the city. They had no plan. At least, he had no fucking plan.
He looked at Elizabeth out of the corner of his eye. And she read his thoughts.
"I'm thinking!" because she shouted immediately after.
Jonathan could do nothing but laugh.
"Well, think fast. Or we're both dead."
The bell. The damn bell wouldn't stop. It was to the point where he could barely hear his own voice, let alone his own thoughts.
He needed Elizabeth to think. He needed her help.
The bell.
He squinted his eyes as if the ringing of the bell were a physical presence, forcing his eyelashes to close. It felt as if his head was going to split in two.
Maybe it was.
Maybe it should be.
Anything would be better than facing this infernal sound, forever.
——
"Lord Dracula!"
The Count opened his eyes slowly. He was in the courtyard, suddenly. The familiar weight of the red-hot iron was gone, too.
He blinked slowly.
When had he come here, what had he done?
He looked back at his subordinate, who was trembling with fear. Not for him, of course, just for himself. Afraid he would lose control and break his neck. Fearing he would tear him apart like a toy. The Count shook his head. The bell... He could still hear that bell. That was the most important thing of all, for it was something new. For the first time in god only knows how long, something new.
"Prepare a boat," the Count ordered.
He was a little... gone.
He wasn't entirely sure if this pawn was the one who was normally in charge of these tasks. So many names and faces had passed before him. And so many had been lost. In short, right now it was impossible for him to rule out a certain resemblance to the other servants who had filled that role.
But if it was none of them, neither the dead ones nor the one now, then he would be.
Passing on his word, making sure it was kept. He would be. He didn't need to think about unnecessary things. Just... move forward.
"A ship, my lord? Where to?
"I don't know," he answered truthfully.
All he could do was follow the call, after all. The bell was tolling, calling him, even if it wasn't just him. Calling him. It would be rude not to answer after all, eh?
"Better not," he went on quickly, "I'd better take care of that myself.
He took the pawn by the arm.
Then he pulled him against his chest. But he didn't hug him. He placed his fingertips on his eyelids... and pressed inward. Deep inside.
Soon, the hallway was filled with the man's desperate screams.
And the blood. Of course.
The fucking world was riding on blood. The Count had the feeling not only that he might lose a lot of things he had already lost, but that he was... wasn't, rather, wasn't?
Stable?
Stable.
That's why he needed something to hold on to. This had to end.
Maybe he had found a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe.
——
He knew it was the last thing he should do in a life or death situation.
Looking back, for whatever reason. Wasting time like that. But he couldn't help himself. As a pirate, he really couldn't help but stop to take a look, check it out with his own eyes, when he noticed a change in the sea. A great displacement of water that, in the middle where he had spent most of his life, could mean a tsunami. A wave that sweeps everything away. In this case, as he discovered as he turned on his heels, it was simply because of what to expect.
The creature emerging from the waters.
An immense creature, causing the water of the harbor to fly everywhere, sowing chaos in the sea that pounded the shore of this lost and dead city. A creature such as he had never seen in his long years. It was not a ball of tentacles, as he had almost imagined, an endless tangle of nightmares. It had scales, like a snake, but it wasn't that kind of monster. A gorgon or something.
There were a lot of tentacles, though. Too many of them. Too many.
It had one eye.
And it was all mouth. When it opened its mouth, its face split in more than half, as if it were separating from its body. That's how big the mouth was. Not to mention the teeth, also huge. That thing could easily crush an entire fleet.
No wonder it was tearing his shitty army to shreds. Jonathan felt a stab of fear. But the most important thing, the truly terrifying thing, was that he hadn't seen anything like it. What a disgusting thing.
"Fuck. I'm sick of... of not knowing what the fuck is going on." Wasting not only time, but energy. But he had to say it. This was too much.
He'd seen all kinds of magical creatures, but what the hell was that? His first instinct was the insanity of denying his own senses. His sight, his ears, even his sense of smell.
Because if there were beings like that roaming the earth, someone else would have seen them. He would already know about them.
Just because there was a why for everything didn't mean it wasn't crazy. Somehow or other, that thing existed, it was here. And it was coming for him. The creature dove for dry land. Like a swimmer from above. On its way it crushed boxes and small stalls, tore lampposts from the ground, simply by brushing against them. Causing great destruction by pure accident. Of course, this city was dead and empty, so no one cared about the destruction itself.
What mattered was the havoc it was wreaking on their army.
But, apparently, a few were going to..... Not live to fight another day. For the creature began to glide across the ground at high speed, coming at them like a bullet. Better than any bullet. That thing wiped out everything in its path, just ran it over.
"You shouldn't have stopped!"
Really?
Did she really want to start now? He looked at her sideways, incredulous. That is, without stopping to run. You don't have to be faster than the creature. Just faster than her. He wasn't willing to lose her so soon, but if he had to, he would.
The same went the other way around, of course.
If throwing him into the jaws of that creature would gain her even a few seconds, she would do it without even flinching.
With the Count's attention on her, then she could be presumed dead.
But in the heat of the moment she would think "I can't help it" and do whatever she had to do to stay alive if only for a second longer. That was the way human beings worked. He couldn't trust her.
He couldn't.
But he wanted to.
Gods, after that man had stabbed him in the back, how much he craved to trust someone. All for a little trust.
"You stopped too, bitch," he spat.
He wanted to trust her and maybe he could do it freely, because everything indicated that he would die before he could pay for that mistake.