I didn’t have time to think or breathe. Caspar was gone. He had moved up front to protect me from the hoard of monsters. He pushed them back, throwing them across the room, only to have them come crawling back a few seconds later. It was awful to watch and feel like I could do nothing. I knew that without any help, he was moments away from being overwhelmed and torn to pieces.
Dammit, I wanted to help, but I could feel him in my mind telling me to stay exactly where I was. If you move, then I will lose focus on the fight. He warned me.
But how could I stay still? He had good as told me that he intended to die, to protect me. So what did he expect me to do, just stand here and watch him die in front of my eyes? No, my heart and conscience would never let me.
So I made a compromise. I grabbed chucks of smashed up rock from the ground and began hurling it at the undead. It was pathetic, but it was the only thing I could think of in the moment. Helplessly I grabbed another piece of rock from the floor and bravely stepped forward to venture closer to the fight. Perhaps if I was closer, then the rocks might do greater damage. I went to take another step when a hand suddenly stopped me.
“Get back there,” Casper said gruffly.
He was awake.
Pulling me back he snapped, “Hazel, concentrate on figuring out a way of getting us of this goddamn mess while I help Caspar.”
I nodded unsurely, and watched him dive into the fray. My heart lifted. One vampire against five undead super zombies was bad, but two vampires helped to even the odds slightly.
But even so, the odds were still against us and we needed a way to get out. The undead blocked the staircase in front, but back here there was a secret passage Henrietta had used to sneak in.
I ran across to the wall that I had seen open earlier, and began searching around for a secret switch or door mechanism that would open up the wall for us to escape. At first, I saw nothing but stone and rubble. It didn’t even seem possible that the door could slide open, but then I noticed that the sconce nearest the wall appeared slightly different from the others dotted around the room.
Rushing over to it, I began pushing, pulling and turning it. The black iron sconce did nothing until I pulled and turned it left. With a heavy groan, something clicked and I heard the wall sliding open.
“Caspar! Casper!” I yelled excitedly, running over to the open door.
I heard Caspar screaming at me to stop, but I ignored him. I had found the way out! I rushed to the opening in the wall and stopped dead in my tracks. There was an undead staring straight at me from inside the secret passageway. It growled at me, and I heard Caspar screaming my name again.
It was a trap.
I thought about returning back to the sconce and trying to shut it, but it was too late. I looked to the right and saw another undead, stalking towards me. My heart dropped and I slowly backed myself into the corner.
Both Casper and Caspar were being overwhelmed with monsters. Caspar was desperately fighting to break away, but the undead were relentlessly attacking him.
I could see his concentration lapsing as he fought to drive the undead back while trying to maintain eye contact with me.
“Don’t worry about me,” I yelled. “Focus on you!”
I hoped he would let me figure this out by myself, but he didn’t. He continued to anxiously watch me from across the room, as the two undead slowly crept towards me.
Caspar, please concentrate on what you’re doing! I yelled mentally at him. I could see an undead off to his left, moving up on him and he was completely oblivious to it. Luckily, Casper spotted it and threw it out the way. He seemed to be better at fighting them then Caspar.
A growl ahead of me brought me back down to reality with a bump. The undead from the corridor was now crouching down in front, looking up at me with soulless milky white eyes. Its mouth, filled with razor sharp teeth seemed to unhinge at the jaw, like a snake preparing to devour a large meal. A shiver swept over me and I pressed my back further into the wall.
I needed to do something – anything.
The undead tensed, getting ready to pounce, and from the other side of the room, I had Caspar roaring my name. My eyes lifted up, disconnecting with the monster in front. I saw Caspar, now spinning around, preparing to run forward and rescue me. It must have been a knee-jerk reaction, because foolishly, he was turning his back on two undead that were getting ready to jump him.
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. The first undead leapt into the air, landing on Caspar’s back and forcing him hard into the ground. As he tried to recover the second undead jumped on top of him, digging its claws into his back and pinning him to the floor.
My heart dropped down into my stomach… Oh God, they were going to kill him.
I could feel the fear and stress mounting up, inside me. It was a kind of emotional volcanic pressure, I had never experienced before. I stepped forward, without even thinking about the monster only a few feet away and screamed, “STOP!”
Power flowed through me and I felt myself suddenly connecting to every single undead creature in the room. Darkness and death overwhelmed me, and I could feel the unrest of hundreds of souls pressing up against me, inside my mind. I fell to the floor, cradling my head. The misery of these spirits was tearing me apart from the inside.
I thought being a necromancer would be purely manipulating dead bodies, but now I realised it was darker than that. The spirits of these bodies had been disturbed when their bodies had been reanimated from their eternal sleep. And now they were crawling inside my head, begging me to release them.
Doing my best to fight the undead tidal wave that was pounding inside my head, I weakly commanded, “I release all of you.”
The relief was instant.
The undead corpses fell to the ground, limp and dead while their spirits returned back to where ever it is we go when we die.
“Hazel,” I heard Caspar call my name.
He pushed aside the two dead corpses that were lying on top of him, and ran over to me. “What did you do?”
“Necromancy – I think. Seeing you about to be mauled to death was enough to trigger it,” I replied.
He helped me up to my feet and wrapped his arms around me. “Oh God, I thought we were done for.”
“Well, I pulled through on the last hurdle.”
Caspar released me and turned to check on Casper, who was buried under a couple of corpses. He helped his brother out from the undead pile on top of him and hugged him. “I’m glad you decided to wake up and join the fight.”
Casper stood stiff as a plank, in Caspar’s arms, unsure how to respond. He awkwardly patted Caspar on the back and said, “I see that Hazel has persuaded you of my innocence.”
“Please forgive me for doubting you,” Caspar replied.
I smiled softly to myself and thought I’d give them a moment alone to say what they needed to say. Making up an excuse, I said, “I’m just going to have a little look down this secret passage. I won’t go far.”
Leaving the two of them to get reacquainted, I walked through the narrow corridor. I listen to their voices as they talked to one another, and after a few tense moment, I was relieved to hear a little laughter from the pair of them.
Finally, they were together, and happy. A smile crept across my face, and inside me, for the first time, I felt a hopeful future for our family and all of Port Cressida.
Henrietta had lost, and we had won…
Suddenly, a strange sensation on my back made me stop dead in my tracks. It felt like someone had just tapped me on the back. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but then I felt something wet dripping down my chest. I looked down, and in the pale candlelight, I saw dark crimson blossoming across the material of my dress.
The pain started to radiate through my entire torso like someone had just stuck a knife straight through me.
“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” Henrietta’s voice said, softly behind me.
I went to move, to turn and face her, but a paralysing wave of agony stopped me. Oh my god, something was really stuck in my back.
I looked down the front of my chest, and saw the sharp metallic point covered in blood protruding out from between my ribs. The bitch had stabbed me.
Her hand gently swept over my shoulder and she said, “Here, let me make it better for you.”
A pain tore through my chest once again as she pulled out the blade. I collapsed to the floor, blood now pouring out from me. I tried to call for help, but there was something wrong with my lungs, I couldn’t catch my breath. Gasping, I tried to call out to Caspar through my mind… but I couldn’t. The connection was blocked.
Henrietta knelt down beside me, holding a bloody dagger – the same dagger she had given me earlier, to kill Caspar with. Brushing my hair away from my eyes she whispered, “I wasn’t completely talentless like Caspar made me out to be. I did have at least one extraordinary gift to my name – I can manipulate and block the invisible ties that bind people together. So, there is no use in trying to call out to Caspar in your mind. He can’t hear you.”
I stared helplessly at her, as I haemorrhaged out.
She dropped the knife to the floor and continued, “I never actually killed Celia, in the physical sense. I got Louis to do that for me. I broke their bond and manipulated Louis into killing her for me. He even helped me arrange the accidental death of his own child… That’s how fucking powerful my ability was, and still is. I thought about getting Caspar to kill you, that’s why I blocked your bond, but then when I found out you were a necromancer, like me, I thought I could persuade you to join me… And we both know how that ended.”
She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, drawing a breath in. Quietly I moved my hand, reaching for the handle of the blade…
“Today, I allowed your connection to be temporarily restored in the hope that you would see the darkness inside him and come to join me. But now I see, it was a pointless exercise. You won’t change Hazel, and now you’ve killed my pets, I will have to kill you, Caspar and Casper myself. There is no surviving a cut from this blade. I wish your ending could’ve been different, but you refused to see reason and now you and that disgusting bloodline will die.”
She went to move, and my fingers quickly wrapped around the handle of the blade. I lifted it up and plunged it into the side of her neck. She screamed, her hand reaching up and pulling the dagger out of her neck. Blood began to spurt out from her neck and she gasped, “What have you done?!”
Through laboured breaths, I replied, “Bitch, if I’m going to hell, then I’m taking you with me.”
Her eyes widened in fear, and she turned her head away from me and looked up the corridor. Both Casper and Duke were running towards her at a frightening speed. They must’ve heard her cries and come to see what happened.
There was no time to think, or speak. She stared at me for a few brief seconds with her eyes full of defeat then disappeared as Casper dragged her away from me in a blink of an eye.
It was quick. The dagger would have killed her anyway, but Casper had no intention of letting her enjoy her last few seconds alive. He wasted no time in extinguishing whatever little life she had life, by ripping her head clean off her shoulders.
I didn’t see the grizzly act, but I heard the crack and tear, then the two thuds as her body folded to the floor, followed by her head.
Casper returned back to us, his hands covered in tiny smatterings of blood. I looked up at him and saw the sudden shock in his eyes as he saw the blood pouring from my chest. “Hazel,” he breathed.
Caspar was standing beside him, still as a statue.
I reached out to him with my mind, fumbling to find the mental thread that connected our consciences. With Henrietta dead, the bond was restored, but when I touched his mind with my own I found nothing but solid blackness.
“What has she done to you?” He said, dropping to his knees and gathering me up into his arms.
I opened my mouth to reply, but my lungs refused to work. I broke out into a coughing fit, and brought up mouthful after mouthful of blood. Caspar stared desperately at Casper, who leaned down and picked up the knife Henrietta had used to stab me.
“It’s one of those poisoned daggers,” Casper said gravely.
Caspar shook his head in denial, his arms around me tightening. “No, it can’t be. I can’t loose her.”
Casper’s eyes fell to the floor. “I’m sorry, Caspar.”
He shook his head, “No, this can’t be. You can’t die.”
But I was dying. I could feel the flame of life within me, starting to flicker. The world became less real and more dreamlike, and all I could focus on was his gorgeous face.
“Pleas, brother,” Caspar said, “If what you tell me is true, then take the dagger and cut me too. I refuse to live another second without her.”
I shook my head in his arms and said telepathically, No, please don’t. I want you to live.
He looked down at me, his dark eyes full of tears and regret. “I can’t be without you, Hazel. I will follow you wherever you go. In this life, and the next.”
Caspar, your brother needs you, your people need you – you have to live for them.
“I will not live without you, Hazel,” he repeated again.
I lifted my hand up to his face and traced his jawline. Caspar, I’m dying and I don’t want to spend my last few moments of life arguing with you. Please, just hold me while I slip away.
He squeezed his eyes shut and drew me close and whispered, “I’ll never let you go, Hazel.”
He then looked to Casper who was holding the knife and said, “Give it to me, I wish to follow my wife into the next life.”
“Caspar, I can’t – ”
“GIVE IT TO ME!”
Pain and darkness exploded inside of him, and his eyes began to turn black.
Casper backed away from him and shook his head.
This only enraged Caspar, even more.
“This is your fault,” he lashed out. “You should’ve been watching her! Both you and Duke were supposed to protect her. And now look at her – look at what this cold and heartless world has done to my Hazel.”
The walls around us trembled and could feel the darkness pouring out of him. His eyes went completely black and he said, “All of you will be punished. All of you will die for failing to protect her.”
Caspar! I called out to him, but it was pointless. The darkness had taken over, and the Caspar I knew and loved was gone.
I tried lifting my hand out to touch him, but I couldn’t move my arm. Blackness swept over my vision and I felt a coldness slowly enveloping my body. Death was closing in. I tried to reach out to Caspar with the precious few seconds I had left, but it was all in vain. Within a second or two, my hearing shutdown and vision became a small pinpoint of light.
The world became quiet.
My last breath of air left my lungs.
My heart took its very last beat.
The blood in veins stilled.
And I died.