Nikola rushed up the stairs and into the kitchen, and he gathered everything. Black pepper and salt to cleanse the aura of the sacrifices. Green tea, still freshly cut, to be burned so that the magic could take hold.
And finally, saffron to stabilize the magic. He placed everything in a basket and then took a pot and placed it in the basket as well.
He had always hated eating raw meat for rituals.
Even more so when it was human flesh. It gave him the mother of all indigestion. But it had to be done. He would be attacked with Wei Caihong when the mob came for them.
He was a stranger in this land, and after he spent a night in the palace, their lord suddenly starts drinking blood? The villagers would be right to blame him.
He rushed back to the dungeon, and he reached Wei Caihong, who was looking at the two sacrifices with a calculating look. Nikola gave him the pot and then placed the green tea and salt and pepper inside.
He ignited it with a breath and when it had burned long enough to give out smoke, he took it and begun to add the saffron inside while chanting. When he finished with:
Take their spirits and let us fall into darkness.
He looked towards Wei Caihong.
"They need to eat all of this before we carve their hearts out. And it has to happen fast. It is normally done with willing sacrifices. I'll overpower the servant, since he is still conscious, and you don't know the chant. You ease half of this into the criminal. Make sure you massage his throat well, so he doesn't choke."
The servant was staring at them wildly and when the gag was removed, he screamed, high pitch and full of terror. Nikola touched the man's temple, smiling.
"It's fine. You want to do this. A'nkai ros muras."
The servant smiled and calmed down; his eyes half-closed. He opened his mouth obediently and begun to chew the ashen mix Nikola was feeding him.
Wei Caihong repeated Nikola's motions and then his words, and the criminal opened his eyes. Wei Caihong gave him some burned herbal mix, and the man swallowed obediently.
"You are a natural," Nikola commented as he continued to scoop more and more of the mix.
"I just copied you. What does A'nkai ros muras mean?"
"It is the Archangel's will. It doesn't work on me; in case you've been wondering," Nikola added, as he kept on committing his crime.
Wei Caihong's lips twitched, and that was all the confirmation Nikola had needed to have to know he had indeed been considering enslaving him that way.
They both reached out into the pot at the same time and their fingers met. There were no more burned leaves left inside.
"It's time," Nikola said, as he picked up the knife from where it was resting on a side table, but Wei Caihong took it from him.
"You'll make a mess of your robes. Let me," Nikola stepped back and let the noble take off the rags that were trying to pass for robes on the prisoner and dug his knife just above the man's heart and begun to carve it out.
Blood dripped down and onto Wei Caihong's black robes. He threw a chunk of flesh on the floor and the heart became uncovered.
"Should I take it out?" The vampire looked as if in a trance at the still beating organ. Nikola cleared his throat.
"No, do the same to the other one. We'll take out the hearts at the same time and begin to eat them together. Otherwise, the ritual won't take hold."
The knife begun carving again and this time two chunks of flesh plopped on the floor. Nikola sidestepped them and moved towards the servant, hitching up his long, wide sleeves so that he wouldn't dirty them.
"Now," And they, one with limbs bolstered by magic and another by the curse he was in, tore out the still beating hearts and bit down on them at the same time.
The two sacrifices finally died, and a light breeze blew in the dungeons as they swallowed. The two heartless men turned to ashes on the floor as Nikola swallowed the last bloody bite.
He had always liked this part of the ritual best. For what good was it if everyone forgot, if he still had a corpse to get rid of? The sounds of torture resumed around them, and Wei Caihong kneeled over, heaving.
"My stomach wants to tear itself apart," the noble complained.
Nikola patted his abdomen.
"Cannibalism is taboo for a reason, my Ebony. Now up with you. You have to have a dark room that is not a shit-stained dungeon," they passed by the cells.
No one paid them any attention. The ritual having reshaped reality itself.
Nikola was led back inside the bathing room, the corridors mercifully being windowless so that Wei Caihong could go through them. Servants rushed to fill the bath again, and they both were soon washing grime and blood off themselves.
"Were you always like this?" Wei Caihong asked. There was slight pity in his voice. Nikola splashed some water his way.
"Ready to murder at the drop of a hat, you mean?" He asked, and Wei Caihong wiped the water that got on his face.
"I am a cruel man, my Emerald. But you…there is gentleness in you. Yet, you bury it under detachment. How much did the angels hurt you for you to do so?"
Nikola snorted. What did Wei Caihong know about it all?
It was not like he really cared…
"I was never physically abused," and it was the truth. Instead, the angels used guilt and emotional pain to get their lessons through.
These are your people. You have to protect them.
Azazel would say after he would lay him flat on his back in the sparring ring. They never used life steal, but Azazel always fought other people in front of him afterward to show him how to hack life humans to pieces.
The Nephilim are your kin. Nadja died to bring her son into this world. She begged you to take care of him with her last breath.
Samyaza would insist when Nikola wanted to just send the Nephilim on a suicide mission instead of sending his human armies.
But the cruelest of them all was Penemue.
Don't you love me?
He'd ask when the other angels would complain to him about Nikola's lack of progress in the beginning days because he would rather not bleed or make someone else bleed for his rituals.
Nikola closed his eyes. He hated thinking about his youth.
"But you were abused all the same," Wei Caihong had gotten closer to him and was holding him as if he were afraid Nikola would break.
"I am not a victim, my Ebony. I used to rule the world and then when Pallas rouse to challenge me, I defeated him," Nikola said, relaxing into Wei Caihong's hold.
"I've turned many into victims in my time," Wei Caihong said, as if this empathy was foreign to him. "And you lost everything, in the end."
Nikola barked a laugh and tried to get away, but Wei Caihong was holding him close to himself. So, he buried his face in Wei Caihong's shoulder and returned the embrace instead.
"You are a weapon of mass destruction," continued the noble, and his voice wavered. "But they couldn't become your masters. If they were, then you wouldn't have drowned their children. I don't claim to know anything about you, but…perhaps that is why Penemue doesn't want to get out of the Abyss. He must care for you, even if he passed you over to a bastard like me. The pain of both losing your lover of a millennium and your only child must be tearing him inside."
"Do you think he flew into the Abyss himself?" Nikola whispered his greatest fear. Wei Caihong tightened his arms around him.
"It's possible. Although of all the sins the angels committed, his was the greatest. He did give us writing, after all. And he ruled by your side," hearing this pass through Wei Caihong's lips made Nikola sigh.
Nikola's stomach twisted uncomfortably, and he winced. Here came the indigestion. Wei Caihong finally released him, only to cup his face into his hands and stare in his eyes.
"Here we value broken things," he began, and his fingers traced gentle patterns against Nikola's skin. "We put them back together with molten gold, and they become more beautiful than they were when they were whole. Let me put you back together."
"Let me guess? With time and love and all that crap?" Nikola knew he was being childish, but he just couldn't help himself. Who was this stranger to presume that Nikola needed saving?
That he needed to heal?
What he required was Penemue's arms wrapped securely around him. Nothing less and nothing more.
"Time passes even for you, my Emerald," Wei Caihong said, as he leaned in so that he could kiss Nikola. Nikola pulled back at the last minute, and Wei Caihong looked at him with eyes full of pity again.
"But I think the problem lays in you. You have lived broken for so long; you have gotten used to it. You no longer miss being whole. Want the one who shattered your fine porcelain heart because you feel like you belong to him. But you don't. If you could only realize your power, then you'll see that the angels need you. You don't need them. And least of all Penemue."
Nikola snorted. Words were sweet, but they meant nothing to him, coming from Wei Caihong. He knew what he wanted, refused to care if there was a kernel of truth to what Wei Caihong was saying.
"I will always love him," Nikola said stubbornly as he got out of Wei Caihong's arms. "And he will always love me."
"Then why did he sire a child on one of your granddaughters?" Wei Caihong asked, face calm and collected. Knowing full well that the question was like a dagger to Nikola's heart.
"And you are the better alternative? You are cursed. I cursed you!" Nikola's voice rouse at the last part, and Wei Caihong placed a finger on top of his lips to keep him quiet.
"I asked for it. I forgive you."
Nikola laughed bitterly at that. Memories long buried swam to the front of his mind. He kept it all a secret, least his people rebelled against him once they found out. But now there was no one left to rebel.
He had killed them all.
So, what was the harm in sharing his secrets with Wei Caihong?