Chapter 82 – Cruel Revelation

LETTICE.

I had been waiting for this specimen for a long time. Her coming here could mean the beginning of a new era for my babies. Her blood was so valuable that I didn’t care if I dried her completely.

All my previous attempts with Sonia’s blood failed, but now she was too weak and her blood did not regenerate as fast as it once did. And I needed large quantities.

After I locked Teresa in the dungeon, my intention was to go up to the office to check the latest data that could help me discover even further what I was doing wrong. Now that I had what I needed, nothing should go wrong anymore.

My children were waiting for the miraculous serum, and I would not disappoint them. My revenge would be sublime and final. But right after I lit the torches in the hallway, a horrible sight unfolded before my eyes. I could feel my blood boiling and raising, ready to explode and the fire burning inside me.

All the cells had their bars on the wall and no trace of the girls I had locked in here. Some were contorted, others were broken, but no dungeon was the way I had left it. I screamed with all my might, rushing into all the cells one at a time.

I was crazy about the gruesomeness they gave me to see. My anger was rising at an alarming level, and the demon inside me was already going crazy. I just let it quench my mad thirst. I grabbed the nearest gate and slammed it, letting the deafening noise spread throughout the fortress. “Aaaagh!” I screamed in agony and helplessness. “Who dared to face me like that?”

I took a few more steps, and an apocalyptic image paralyzed the demon in me. My children were torn apart, thrown everywhere. Some were in the last seconds of life, others had their heads cut off, but they reduced most of them to ashes.

They were agonizing, desperate, and that filled me with anger. I passed among them, hoping maybe there was someone else alive. In my despair, I grabbed one’s head and raised it to the level of my eyes. His eyes were still open, and I could see the terror he had gone through.

The helplessness made me throw it away, hitting the wall hard, cracking the skull. With my hands full of the blood of these unfortunate beasts, I uttered a curse and an oath at the same time that I will carry out, even if it will be the last thing I will do. “I will have no pity for anyone, for any soul, whether small or adult. I swear my revenge will be cruel and I will not have peace until those who have done this pay with their lives!”

I left behind the scene as if out of a horror movie and headed to the lab. I would spend the entire afternoon there, working, mixing, creating until the serum was ready.

Truly stepping on the corpses, I went up to the laboratory. Everywhere my children lay in a deep sleep forever. Only if I was here, maybe I could do something to help them. I went up to the lab and passed along the only cell where I hoped to find that someone inside.

I didn’t even know if I wanted to find her just like everyone else dead, or the cell to be empty. And when I arrived, the same emptiness surrounded my being. She was no longer here. I went inside madly, still smelling her breath, but no trace of her.

“Neveeeeh!” I screamed once more, the echo reaching the farthest hills in Wales, spreading fear. I fell to my knees, not knowing if she had anything to do with all this. And although her conviction was imminent, it pissed me off. I could not carry out this revenge.

She had betrayed me for the second time. I will never forgive her and seek her unceasingly until I will make her pay for every willful violation of my word and order.

Noah would have to help me. He would have to be on my side. But honestly, I didn't care who would get caught in my revenge or how far it would go.

I crawled out of my daughter’s cell. Another traitor who will get punished at the right time, and I advanced on the narrow path that led to the laboratory.

But there was no lab. The metal door had simply been torn off, bent, and laid on the ground. I could feel my own blood and the blood of the beast in me boiling again, driving away any trace of humanity I still had. The test tubes got broken, thrown everywhere.

They compromised all the experiments I had worked on. All schemes destroyed or burned. They threw my lifelong work to the ground. There was no trace left of what I was researching.

I set my mind to calculate everything cold. Complaining won't fix anything. I had the one who would give me an invincible, immortal army. All I had to do was rebuild my army, find other unfortunates to bring here, and subjugate them.

The process will be long, but it will reward my patience. The nearby village will help me achieve my goal. But first I have to shed my rage on someone for that. I mostly knew who was responsible.

The Gallagher brothers will pay with tears of blood for every lost life in these dungeons. They will feel on their own skin what my anger meant and I will have no mercy on anyone.

I shall make them leave the same ordeal as my demons and will destroy them one by one until they beg for mercy and for their pathetic lives.

I returned to the dungeon, where I locked up Sonia and Teresa. Sonia’s confession certainly terrified her, or at least amazed Teresa enough to make her tremble in front of me.

I hurried across the hall, returning to the horrible scenes and standing in front of their cell. Sonia looked at me in terror. Teresa still challenged me.

Naively, she didn’t even know what was waiting for her. I will be ruthless. I opened the iron gate wide to the wall, announcing my presence.

The sight delighted me, one too weak to look at me and face me and the other still in power, still thinking naively that she can defeat me. Her gaze pierced me.

But I got amused only because even though she didn’t know it would be in here, she would find her end, with no one saving her in time.

“I see you’ve already met, aunt Sonia and niece Teresa!” I began mockingly looking at them.

It was a crazy pleasure for me to play with them and after the massacre I witnessed, the torment would be even greater. Nobody made fun of Lettice and lived to tell the story.

They were both in silence until Sonia, perhaps in the most uninspired moment, began negotiating on the other one’s life.

“Why did you kidnap her? Let her go. You already have my blood. Why do you need her? Teresa is not even a vampire…” said the unhappy woman with determination, letting her gaze on the ground to take a deep breath.

It was an enormous effort for her to speak.

She looked just like a finished piece of cloth that I won’t need soon. She couldn’t regenerate her blood, but I had other plans for her.

“Haha, don’t make me laugh, my dear Sonia! You struggle even to breathe and ask me to spare the one next to you? This specimen I brought in is very rare and I will need to continue my experiments. Since you no longer serve me almost for nothing, I thought I needed someone fresh. You don’t even know what power lies in front of you. Or maybe you know if you met the one who had her, her mother, Jessica!” I roared.

I knew that if I said that woman’s name, something would break in her and explode somehow. And I was right. It was a matter of time and patience.

“Don’t you dare talk about my mother with your dirty mouth!” Teresa roared, gathering her strength from the depths of her being and rising to her feet, her eyes reddened, small balls of fire appeared in her bounded hands, and though she was ready to attack, she was pathetic. She had no power in here.

“Oh, how touching? Now she remembers having a mother.” I laughed again, sustaining her raged gaze.

I would not let a silly girl defeat me so fast. One spray of this wonderful mixture was enough to drive her senses and body insane. She stumbled into the chains and immediately fell on her back, to my amusement.

“You are so easy to beat and so naïve. Maybe you didn’t realize who I really am. Maybe this will help you better!” I said and putting on my glasses, taking on a more human face, and stepping on her chest. Teresa’s eyes widened instantly.

“Luana Antonov, I had to figure it out!”

“Wrong answer, dear. Lettice Duncan, Sebastian’s great-great-grandmother!”