Bryson and Lila watched in horror as the barrier disappeared. Nico and Ben were buried in the sand, the ghoul still flailing around in the sand, while Viola now stood alone against Keddrick. I didn’t think he would break out like that. Bryson thought before turning to Lila.

“I’m going in. You stay here.” Bryson said.

“What? Why?” Lila asked in disbelief.

“In case something else goes wrong you’re plan C.”

“I’m a terrible plan C.”

“Yeah, and I’m a terrible plan B.” Bryson said as he cast a small illusion spell to help mask his presence. The spell was a slightly more advanced version of the illusion spell that he and Keddrick have cast in the past.

Lila watching Bryson was able to keep him in her sight until he got past all the foliage where suddenly she found it difficult to spot him.

“Good luck.” She whispered.

Bryson crept his way toward the Keddrick, quickly making his way over trying not to be spotted. It seemed as though his illusion spell was working, no one seemed to notice his approaching presence. This was despite the fact that he was wearing a blue and white shirt walking through the sandy beach, the nighttime darkness did help. Keddrick was currently focusing all his attention on Viola.

“Now that we are alone, why don’t we stop this ridiculous fighting and make up already?” Keddrick said sneered.

“Well…” Viola said before sending a wave of magical energy at Keddrick.

“Blaah!” Keddrick cried out as he was sent flying backwards from the force. The magic blast left a nasty burn mark across Keddrick’s face. The burn very quickly disappeared, and his smooth pale skin quickly became unblemished.

“Cute.” He growled as from up above him three blood red magic circles appeared. Out blasted beams of magic at Viola. She quickly raised a shield and managed to absorb the blast.

She saw Keddrick preparing to fire again and suddenly wrapped herself in a veil of magic. She became a sudden blur and zipped across the shore, narrowly avoiding the second blast.

“Run my dear! Don’t let me catch you!” He sang out as he tried to land a hit on her.

Eventually, one of the blows struck near Viola and exploded. The blast sent her tumbling onto the floor. As she tried to get up, she found a weight pressed onto her back. Some type of force was pinning her to the ground.

“I’ve caught you now.” Keddrick said gleefully, pointing a finger at Viola that kept Viola stuck on the floor, “No more running, you are coming with me.”

“Hey idiot!” Bryson shouted out.

Keddrick whipped around and searched for the source of the mocking. Eyes racing around the place for a moment he located Bryson.

“You? Where did you come from?” Keddrick asked not very intimidated by the young child.

“From your worst nightmare!” Bryson said trying not to cringe at how stupid that sounded aloud.

This earned a roaring laugh from Keddrick, “Oh are you now young lad? You going to throw more playing cards at me?” He jeered.

“Actually I’m going to use that.” Bryson said pointing upwards.

“Huh?” Keddrick looked to where Bryson was pointing at. He saw nothing but for the stary night sky and the moon.

As Keddrick was distracted looking at what Bryson was pointing at, Bryson pulled out a smooth seashell from his pocket. He could feel the groves from the markings that he had etched into the shell earlier.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

He dropped the shell into the sand and quickly stomped down on it embedding it into the sand, his eyes turning pure white and glowed while doing so. Around the seashell, larger writings of what was on it appeared on the sand and gave a golden glow.

“What nonsense are you spewing?” Keddrick asked turning back toward Bryson, who was currently running away from where he stood.

“What?” Keddrick said bewildered before noticing the new writing on the sand, “Does that say- oh no.” Keddrick stopped, eyes widened in fear as he read what the markings said. Twisting his body around toward the moon he turned just in time to see a massive beam of light engulfed him.

BRRRUUUUUUUUMMMMM!!!

Pure radiant energy sent Keddrick smashing into the ground where the writing was. Once the beam disappeared and Keddrick laid on the sand, body sizzling and cracking. Bryson, now without the glowing eyes, looked over at Keddrick in curiosity.

He then turned toward Viola who was now no longer pinned onto the ground, as Keddrick’s spell was obviously interrupted. Viola stared at Bryson wide-eyed, jaw hanging open.

“Yeah, I didn’t think that was going to work.” Bryson breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Look out!” Viola cried out.

Bryson whipped around and saw Keddrick had risen up. Towering over Bryson, Keddrick was burnt, tired, in pain and no longer healing. But nevertheless, he was still a vampire and still standing and extremely angry.

“You… hurt me…” Keddrick growled.

Bryson stared at the very angry vampire, taking a few cautious steps back. He could feel the killing intent emanating from Keddrick and he had no idea what to do.

“Yeah… it was suppose to do more than that.” Bryson said as he tried to make himself look as small as possible. Why did I say that? He wondered to himself as his remark only further angered the vampire.

Keddrick’s wings extended outwards as his crimson eyes glowed once more. A massive magic circle appeared over his head, and it hummed with energy. Ready to blast Bryson out of existence Keddrick opened his mouth to chant something.

However, only a cry of pain came out of him as Nico Reese snuck up behind of him and with a single mighty upswing, he sliced off one of Keddrick’s wings.

“AAAHHH!” Keddrick screamed out in pain, the magic circle vanishing as he lost focus, “My wing! How dare-” Keddrick screamed facing Nico now, only to see Ben Gallagher charge into him.

Charging in, Ben plunged in a new Lightning Willow stake into his chest. Tackling him over, Keddrick landed backwards onto the ground, Bryson scampered back. Keddrick was stuck to the ground with the stake through his heart.

Flailing around he stared up Ben, face no longer red with anger but pale with fear.

“Wait, wait wait wait wait! We can- aurgh!” Keddrick said as Ben kicked him in the face.

“Shut up.” Ben grumbled shaking his head free of some sand before he started chanting a spell. Keddrick squirmed on the floor with Ben’s boot on his face as he pulled out a piece of paper and chanted. Bryson recognized the incantations Ben was chanting. They were the words of some sort of purification spell.

Finishing his chant, he slammed the paper onto Keddrick’s chest and Keddrick was set ablaze. Bright golden holy fire completely covered Keddrick from head to toe.

“Noooo!” Keddrick screamed as the flames consumed him. Within seconds the holy fire extinguished as if a gust of wind blew it out and Keddrick seemed to be fine, though he stopped moving.

Bryson stared at Keddrick in confusion as he saw him seemingly frozen in place. A moment later Keddrick’s began to lose what little colour he had on his face. More than that, his entire outfit seemed to lose all colour. Quickly it looked as though all the colour was sapped away from him. Everything on Keddrick turned a pale gray before crumbling away into a gray dust.

“What?” Bryson said in wonder staring at the pile of ash.

“Holy fire cleanses until nothing is left to cleanse. So for a vampire, everything was cleansed.” Ben explained.

“So, that’s it then?” Nico asked.

“Yeah, looks like- ” Ben began before a roar behind got all of their attention. Looking back they saw that the ghoul had freed itself and now loomed over Viola, somehow it had managed to take her by surprise.

“How is that thing still moving? It’s master’s dead!” Ben screamed.

“It’s controlled by a gem in it’s head!” Bryson yelled in realization.

The ghoul raised a massive arm over Viola, the other three were far too far away to intervene. Viola helplessly raised her hands up to cover her face as the arm swung down. Except it never came.

A blue blast of energy surged over Viola’s head and struck the ghoul straight in the head, and then past it. Punching a hole through its head, the blue beam blasted its way through and into the night sky.

Once the beam disappeared, the ghoul fell backwards as a small gemstone fell onto the sand a distance away. Viola stared at the now lifeless ghoul in disbelief.

Bryson turned around and saw who had fired the beam. Lila Frost, holding out her bracelet, the last of the blue glow disappearing. She looked over at Bryson, not quite believing that that had actually worked.

Giving a worried laugh she said, “I think the bracelet is out of charges.” Giving a small shrug.

“Yeah, it looks like it.” Bryson said noting that he would now need to recharge the bracelet, “How about that.” He said turning back to look at the ghoul, then to Viola who remained unharmed.

Everyone stood around awkwardly trying to process everything that had occurred. Bryson gave a loud sigh of relief. Could have gone worse. He thought.