A macabre scene halted Isaiah and Astilbe's procession as they turned onto a street that should have been under government protection. In a single blink, their supernatural eyes confirmed why they had been chosen to escort the politician.
The air thickened with a sweet smell, almost enticing, while a field of broken bodies covered the ground. The guards had been torn from their posts with inhuman brutality.
An ordinary-looking figure waited, leaning against the door of the main vehicle. His human appearance hid a soul carved from wickedness. He carried no weapons and had no assistance. And if not for the blood staining his hands and clothes, the few guards still alive might have doubted naming him responsible for the carnage.
Astilbe scanned the surroundings. Such shameless slaughter could never have been the work of a vampire… unless it was an immortal unlike any other. One whose cruelty revealed an overwhelming superiority.
—And it shall come to pass, —the man declared, his voice dripping with unnatural melancholy— that we will take all things that lie in the possession of our enemies.
Astilbe stepped before the minister, but his instinct was useless: a slight motion of the man's hand sent him crashing violently to the ground.
Isaiah recognized the nightmare at once. The stranger's smile was so malevolent it eclipsed even the shadow of his lord, Belzblehem. If he made the mistake of confronting him, he would bring an end to his contract with eternity.
Then, another voice shattered the cursed atmosphere.
—Simei, you have no right to walk upon the earth of the Great God.
The air grew heavy with incense and consecrated soil. The priest's mere presence froze movement and drew the attention of both sides. A woman draped in a white veil stood beside him.
Simei's distorted eyes spilled hatred.
—Hadriel? —the minister exclaimed.
A dangerous priest whom Isaiah didn't dare look at directly. His presence was imbued with the highest purity, casting a suffocating aura that poisoned the air for the vampire. He was a mere mortal whose thoughts Isaiah could not listen to without risking collapse—one guided by the beings of light who rule humanity in secret.Hadriel did not simply possess a sacred presence; he was a living threat. Isaiah, rarely touched by fear, held himself in a restricted posture, barely able to breathe.
—Open your heart to the One who reigns over us, —Hadriel said, his voice ringing like burning iron— for He alone will clear your path of demons. That temple you cling to… in the end, it has no power against the darkness.
The words were meant for the politician, but Simei replied with scorn:
—You yourself will fall, for you do not know the immensity of the darkness you speak of.
Shadows sprang up around him, wrapping him until he blended into the dark. In two imperceptible movements, he vanished at the end of the street.
The veiled woman raised her hand, pointing toward the festival. Simei's vile, overwhelming presence was easy to trace for those who served the Light.
The priest and the minister exchanged a silent look, weighted with obscure understanding. Hadriel offered a gesture of compassion toward the bodies sprawled across the ground, traced blessings in the air, and continued forward, following the devil's trail.
There were no more words—only a thick silence demanding penance. The politician, however, avoided him with cold indifference.
Barely lifting himself, Astilbe muttered with difficulty:
—Hadriel is a priest of the outer atrium… one of the Twelve Consecrated Tribes. He isn't an ordinary human.
The minister offered his hand to the fallen androgyne, listening to his reproach:
—Isaiah noticed it too. That demon had a different scent… as if something older was holding him together.
—Creatures of darkness take weak bodies only to spread evil. Nothing more, —the minister replied.
The words sounded like stubborn arrogance. He knew far too much to reduce what had happened to a simple possession. If not for Hadriel, Simei would have claimed his victory.
—Did you hear the priest? —Astilbe pressed— "The temple won't save you." Aren't they the ones who send demons back to the abyss? Why rely on vampires as guards and not priests?
The politician lowered his gaze, refusing to answer.
Isaiah took a deep breath. Silence enveloped him, carrying an uncomfortable truth:
—The demons of darkness face the beings of light directly. They play with humanity—they mock the gods. But a simple human can send them back to hell, even with an existence as small as theirs. Astilbe… in this world, we only know what our eyes allow us to see.
His voice sounded more like a reminder to himself than an explanation to the others. And in that night steeped in blood and shadows, that truth burned in his chest like frozen iron.