"Desmond." Christina called out to him again, as if trying to wake him from a long, deep, deep sleep.
He wished it were that easy.
He wished this could stop.
He felt his arms fill with strength, but not according to his will. However, he knew what order the shadow had sent to his brain, he knew what he was going to do before his body did.
Desmond, holding the sword in both hands, raised it above his head.
He was like a puppet.
Like a puppet with no will of its own.
It was enough for him to pull its strings for it to do whatever he wanted. He, as a mere puppet, was at the mercy of its strings.
He could not see them, let alone touch them, pull them off.
Well.
Even if he could pluck them by sheer force of will, with superhuman effort, he would be unable to move forever. He would destroy himself in the process... because a puppet needed his strings.
But...
But, anything would do, after he had come this far.
Stop! he shouted inside himself, as if it would listen to him. As if it had any interest in hearing what he had to say.
Stop it!
That wouldn't do any good.
He put everything he had into resisting.
Desmond fought against his own body, to regain control or to cut the threads that bound him, even though he knew what the outcome would be. Either would do him good.
But no.
He got no reward for his efforts. He didn't even get the consolation of knowing it was possible.
He didn't feel that he had achieved even a little bit, that he had made progress.
And the sword was wielded.
His sword, with his arms, with his hands, was wielded to take Christina's life.
Christina was bad. Forget walking, she could barely stand.
There was no way for her to dodge the attack on her own, surely. Would her magic be fast enough to overtake his superhuman speed?
No.
It wasn't.
But Amy pulled her out of the way of the attack, pushing her, knocking her to the ground.
His sword fell between them.
The edge of his sword stayed buried in the ground separating them. His puppeteer pulled it out with ease, of course.
Then it changed its target.
It went to end the life of the person who had gotten in its way at the last moment.
Somebody help her!
The thought was impossible to bear. To kill Amy, any one of them, with his own hands...though not of his own free will..... That would haunt him until the last of his days.
Even after he forgot Abigail's face or his own name, he would remember the blood that stained his hands.
It didn't happen, though.
It was avoided again. Again by Amy herself.
At the last moment, she created an ice shield in front of her. Even though she didn't have the sword, which was an instrument that helped her channel her magic, she did a good job.
Quick, efficient.
It withstood a blow, his sword bouncing off the ice.
The shadow attacked again.
The shield cracked, but it held. That was the important thing.
It didn't endure a third blow, however. The third caused the shield to explode into a thousand shards of ice that flew in all directions like a lethal rain.
Bouncing off the drawers, off the countertop, off the glass, off anything.
Desmond heard screams.
He heard the sound of blood being spilled.
It didn't matter.
Amy, who had been under the shield, hadn't been hit. It had exploded outward, not inward.
Magic.
Ice shouldn't have exploded like that in the first place. Normal ice would have simply collapsed under the blows.
But the ice created by Amy, after its destruction, had shot out like bullets fired from a machine gun. An excellent defense mechanism...
Although only in part, because it damaged those who were fighting with her, not only the enemy.
But as he said, he didn't care.
Not in the least.
Amy was without a scratch and Christina hadn't been hurt either.
That was all that mattered.
Anything but that.
Anything, really.
If I have to give my life...
I'll give it.
Again with that.
Repeating the same thing over and over again, as if it would change anything.
His determination had never been in question. But Desmond didn't have the power to change anything, no matter how willing he was.
Not this time.
This was like a bad dream. Desmond was a helpless spectator to this terrible nightmare and could do nothing but wait for the moment of awakening.
Christina tried to hit him with the door.
The shadow parried the blow like the previous one, only instead of a giant spear he was using a normal sized sword.
However, the strength of his body reinforced to the limit made up for it.
It was knocked back a few inches, but didn't lose the contest of strength.
"Are you sure you want to do this? "His mouth, his voice, but not his words.
Desmond didn't feel a shiver.
Now, even involuntary, instinctive reactions like that were beyond his control. However, he felt as close as he could get without having a chill.
What could be more disturbing than this in the whole world?
The loss of control.
Perhaps the one thing that all people took for granted, even if it wasn't entirely true, had been taken from him. And he might never get it back.
"One good whack with that door could kill this guy," the shadow continued.
Did his voice really sound like that?
So sinister, so... so inhuman?
"Are you willing to risk it?"
Christina pushed back the door.
And then she threw it back over her shoulder, dismissing it with a mixture of resignation and anger on her face.
"Let him go," Christina said.
No, she commanded. Her voice was full of power, as if she was in a position to give orders in this situation.
The shadow laughed at her voice.
This is repulsive, he thought. All about this.
"And why would I do that? "It asked. "You won't kill me if I let him go?"
Sarcastic, openly mocking her.
Christina didn't react to his provocations.
"Oh no, I'll kill you anyway. But if you let him go now, it will be a quick death. Otherwise, I'll make you suffer."
"And how do you plan to get me out of here if I don't want to?"
"I'll find a way," she said, with determination and conviction. Desmond hoped her conviction was based on something, that it wasn't just what she wanted to believe.
The golem lifted the table and threw it at the shadow.
The shadow turned its head slightly. It didn't move.
At the last moment, it split it in two with the sword. His body, his sword, his strength. It looked like that bastard was enjoying it, yeah!
The two halves hit the wall and the countertop behind him. Then they fell to the floor.
"I'm going to kill you all. There's no one who can stop me," it declared, also with absolute conviction, as if it had seen the future in which it won with its own eyes. "Everyone but you, Desmond. You I will hand over on a silver platter. And I will receive my reward."
So it had come here for him.
Which meant... all the people who had died today... all the people who would die today, because this was far from over...
All that blood, all of it, stained his hands.
The same tragedy repeats itself over and over again, he thought.
It seems my whole life is one long bad joke, he thought.
The golem lunged, stepping between the shadow and Christina and Amy.
The thing was bare"handed, but it should.....
He had never tested his strength against a golem's, but it proved to be very effective. A single blow was enough to almost split the summoned golem in half.
Almost, just almost.
It wasn't a living thing, so it could still fight even though its body was almost split in two.
It punched it several times.
In the chest, in the face. Again and again. They were like the blows of a giant hammer.
Desmond couldn't control his body. But that didn't mean he couldn't feel the pain of the attacks. Quite the contrary. Perhaps he was even feeling it more intensely than if he were in control, fighting this golem.
The golem grabbed him by one of his legs.
Unbalancing him, knocking him to the ground.
Then it lifted him over its head like a toy and threw him.
The shadow, however, managed to land safely. On its knees, leaning with one hand on the ground, the sword clawing at the ground until the momentum ran out and it stopped.
Now that he thought about it...
He hadn't even had time to think until now, worried for the lives of his teammates.
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But the shadow hadn't just taken control of his body.
It had demonstrated the ability to maintain the level of physical reinforcement he used in battle. It was something unique that only he could do.
However, it had done it. There was no doubt about it.
Otherwise, his whole body would ache and he wouldn't even be able to get up, or at least his legs would be shaking like leaves in the wind after the beating the golem had given him.
No.
Even before, he wouldn't have been able to stop the blow from the door.
The blow would have sent him flying like a bug.
Shit. If it could do that, then... that it would kill all the students wasn't an empty, empty threat.
It could do it.
All of them, even Amy, even Christina, since she wasn't at her best at the moment.
And how?
How was it possible that it could do something that only he could do?
Desmond saw the golem regenerating in front of his eyes. The two halves coming together.
The girl, moreover, gave the creation its weapon again.
A huge spear whose finish looked like gold.
"Do you think you can stop me? No, not with this body. You'd better run away, little lambs. Run away without looking back. If you stay here, you'll only die a meaningless death."
No one heeded those words.
But as soon as this fight started for real, he wouldn't be surprised if many did, in panic.
That they couldn't take it anymore.
It would be natural, and...
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit.
Shit.
The shadow shrugged, then lunged forward. Like a bullet.
It didn't go for his teammates to do as much damage to him as possible.
At least, not directly.
A head flew off, along with a thick spray of blood that, of course, splattered him.
The shadow had killed a boy his age with his own hands, before he could defend himself, react in any way.
Desmond had no control over anything.
He couldn't even move his eyelids, much less his eyes, to follow the boy's fallen head.
But he had seen enough.
More than enough.
It wasn't my fault. It wasn't me, I wasn't in control. Desmond could tell himself all those things and more. And, while they were true, at the same time they were like excuses.
He would never be able to forget this moment.
His head flying through the air.
The frozen expression on his face in the last moments. An expression of vague surprise, not terror. He had died without realizing it...
Died?
No, he would die.
He wasn't dead yet. Desmond knew that consciousness took time to fade after someone's head was severed.
He didn't know how long he would have...how long he would exist as a disembodied head....
But he couldn't even imagine how horrifying it would be to die like that.
Shit. Shit, shit!
If only he could move his eyelids. Close them, to slow him down, or move his eyes, even a little, in a different direction....
Anything, no matter how small.
Anything to contribute, so that what had just happened would not continue to happen.
Because this was just the beginning.
If things went on like this, there would be a massacre like the one at the Four Seasons that day. Only this one would be perpetrated with his own hands.
Only everything he had would fall apart and even the rubble would burn.
There would be nothing left.
Nothing, not a spark of a soul. Before the night came to an end, he too would be dead. He would be like the living dead, still walking forward, still making meaningless movements, not yet realizing that he was dead and nothing meant anything anymore and there was nothing anywhere anymore....
Desmond felt like screaming.
Desmond’s legs were enveloped by Christina's shadows, preventing the shadow from moving from the spot.
As if nothing had happened, the creature looked at Christina calmly. Desmond felt it smile, even.
"What are you going to do now? Do you think you can hurt me? "it challenged her.
A boy, showing surprising bravery, approached the shadow and....
He touched the sword, and then ran out of there, narrowly avoiding an attack, the sword passing millimeters from his skull as the boy went down.
Desmond waited for something to happen, but it did not.
Not immediately, but something had to happen. He couldn't have risked his life to do something useless, could he? And if he had changed his mind at the last moment, if his resolve had crumbled, then he wouldn't have touched the sword.
He would have just turned and run.
There had to be something...
Incidentally, Christina wasn't doing anything either. She had him trapped, but she hadn't done anything else.
Kill me, he pleaded, hoping that somehow his wish would be conveyed. It's okay if you can save me, but if necessary, kill me, tear me to pieces, whatever it takes to make sure I don't hurt you....
I beg you. Please.
Desmond looked at the boy who had touched the sword.
Not because the shadow was also focused on him, at least he didn't think so, but because it simply fell into his field of vision as he looked at Christina, who had him trapped.
The boy was...
Running back and forth, opening drawers.
Not looking for a weapon, crude as it was.
It looked like he was touching something in all the drawers, but Desmond didn't see him pull anything out of them once.
What was he doing?
Desmond hoped the answer to that question wasn't simply that fear had made him lose his mind, and he wasn't doing anything in particular.
The golem tried to take advantage of his immobility.
Tried was the right word since only his legs were immobilized, so the shadow was able to react appropriately.
Deflecting the attack, severing the head with a single blow.
Though it was quickly restored to its original form.
Christina also bound his arms with the shadows, forced them apart, pulled them down.
Good. Very good.
The last time Christina had tried to do this, that is, in the basement, the enemy had easily escaped several times because he could turn into black smoke.
But now, locked inside his body, it had no way to escape.
Not without letting go of him first. Giving up his best advantage.
If it had no choice, it would do it anyway, despite what that entailed.
The golem slashed at Desmond’s chest.
It ripped open his white shirt, but that was all, it bounced against his reinforced skin doing nothing.
Christina grimaced, but didn't let go of him. Good sign. Good sign, yes. Everything was going better than he could have hoped.
Maybe they would get out of this, after all.
"Stop it! "Christina protested, though she didn't let him out of his prison. That was something. "You don't have to hurt him. I've got him trapped. You monster, get out of Desmond! Now!"
"And why would I do that? Wait a minute, I think we've had this conversation before.
"Get out of there," Christina repeated, pursing her lips into a thin line. Her voice sounded full of power, her body seemed strangely firm even though, at the same time, she could barely stand. And not without help. Her willpower, he supposed. "You have no choice."
"You're wrong. My choice is this: to do nothing. Do nothing and wait to see what you do. Because I'm not the one who's bound, honey. You have nothing to threaten me with. Just words. You're not willing to hurt this guy, or have others hurt him for you. So time is on my side. That's the truth."
Worst of all, Desmond knew the abomination was right.
Time was on its side, of course it was.
Christina wasn't going to be able to do what had to be done, even if she had no choice, even if it was what he wanted.
Amy, of course, wouldn't do that either.
They would fight to protect him even from those who were fighting beside him, and their current condition, both mentally and physically, wouldn't be able to stop the shadow in his body.
This was destined to end in blood. To be a terrible mess.
Fuck. Shit, fuck, fuck, fuck, it was all so close, so close to going right, but now...!
Knives and forks flew out of all the drawers that boy had opened, spoons too, even.
Each and every one of them pointed at him.
"No!" And then Christina let go of him. Not completely, but his arms, and that was more than enough.
Shit.
So this was what the boy had been preparing.
Even though he had only touched his sword, that rain of forks and knives was aiming for Desmond's chest, his neck, his eyes, his head.
To make matters worse, the cutlery was going at a speed impossible to achieve by just throwing it.
They were going several times faster than they would have gone if Desmond had thrown them with all his might, in fact.
They were like bullets.
They could hurt him badly. But it didn't matter.
Desmond had his arms free.
So the shadow knocked each and every one of them out of the air. It didn't let a single one go by. Swinging his sword, it tore through the cutlery with sweeping attacks.
Again and again.
Without moving, without needing to move.
The shadow laughed and laughed.
"This is great! I feel like a god." And it kept on laughing, the little bastard.
With his throat.
With his vocal cords.
With his voice.
With his chest, rising and falling to the rhythm of laughter.
It' s all mine, he thought. You bastard. You're less than scum, and I'm going to kill you. Yes, I'm going to kill you, but not only that. I'll keep my promise. Every last word.
I'll cut you open. I'll devour your fucking entrails. If you hear me...!
"It can't be," one of the students said. Full of fear. The boy's attack had only served to spread more fear among the students.
"All..."
"Not a single one, how is it possible?"
"He' s a monster."
"We have to kill him!"
Yes, yes, thought Desmond, although he had sworn recently to take revenge. He felt like crying, but without the sensations that went with that feeling. Without the lump in his throat. Without the stinging eyes. Without any of that, just an emptiness, because those... physical reactions... also belonged to that abomination.
The shadow cut the bindings of his legs, freeing himself.
The golem tried to stand in its way, but it couldn't even launch a single attack. The enemy swung the sword like a whirlwind...
And by the time it was over, the golem was cut into six pieces on the ground, dissolving.
The shadow shot out.
It ran over the earth the golem was made of.
With a kick, it sent the spear, still intact, rolling away, rolling across the ground. But his gaze did not for a moment stray from Christina, across the room, who was also looking at him.
She was looking at us.
"I'm going to kill you! And he'll be watching every moment!"
A flurry of attacks was launched to stop him.
The shadow just kept running. In one of the camp tests, Desmond had been too fast for any of the students to catch up with him once he decided to use physical reinforcement.
Here it was the same thing.
Running non-stop, with his body full of power, none of them could catch up to him.
The shadow swung the sword in a wide arc.
Lowering its stance, sinking down, it swung the sword in a circle above its head.
Three people died, and the shadow quickly recovered, kept running. Yes, there was no one who could stop him.
Yes... looking from the outside, the word monster was a more than appropriate one to refer to him.
His path was more or less clear. Free of obstacles.
The mages that could were still launching ranged attacks, but no one dared to come close after he had cut down three in one blow, with such ease.
But Christina wasn't alone, at least.
Amy was there. And she was ready.
Amy created ice under her feet, intending to make her lose her balance, and that was what she succeeded in doing.
Her sense of balance was also benefiting from the physical reinforcement magic, indirectly, but there was a limit to everything.
The shadow rolled off. It recovered quickly, as expected.
But Amy was quicker.
Hitting it with a block of ice directly, Amy pushed the enemy against the wall. Then she coated his left arm with ice, making it heavy, rendering it useless.
The shadow looked at his frozen arm... and laughed as if there was something funny about this.
It was getting on his nerves, that laugh.
No, more than that.
If Desmond had to put up with it much longer, he'd go mad.
The shadow struck Amy.
Not with the sword, but with the frozen arm, and it did so with enough force that it broke. Not quite, but several chunks fell off and broke off.
Amy fell to her knees, struggling to breathe.
No!
Another blow, this one to the face. The ice covering the arm broke even more.
Amy was left with a cut on her right cheek, blood pouring from her mouth.
No! No!
Amy put a hand to her face, on the side where she had been cut.
Weakly, shakily, she raised her head to look at him.
To look at the one who...
(would be her murderer)
No!
But, despite her continued efforts, this time too she could do nothing to change the course of things.
It was Christina who saved her.
Christina grabbed Amy with her shadows and threw her across the floor with perhaps too much force. She violently slid against one of the glass doors, the force of the impact was enough to send her through.
Amy ended up outside, under the dark night sky, accompanied by a shower of crystals.
In the moonlight, they would sparkle like precious stones.
The shadow straightened up and, turning to Christina, swung the sword, who was not as lucky as Amy.
For she could not react with the same speed with which she had saved Amy, not quite.
Because there was no one to save her at the last moment.
The blade of the sword sank into her flesh, forcing her to her knees, ripping a scream from her throat that would be burned into his soul until the end of days.
But at least it had not killed her.
The sword had plunged not into her neck, but into her shoulder. Christina had not even lost her arm.
The sword grazed the bone, he could feel it, he could hear it, but it stopped there.
Christina raised her head, looked into his eyes for long seconds, as if searching for something.
Something she didn't find.
This was... just like before, her teammate looking at him, wounded, stunned, the shadow preparing the finishing blow. Only that Christina was alone in the face of danger. That she could count on no one but herself. Desmond was right here, but he could do absolutely nothing.
The shadow withdrew the sword from her shoulder, swung it swiftly to take her head....
But, in the air, the weapon changes trajectory.
Backwards.
It went backwards, along with the shadow, without the shadow turning. As... as if it was being dragged by the sword instead of the other way around.
And so it was.
Without the shadow being able to control it, the sword was skewered into a wall.
Meanwhile, the students took the opportunity to put distance between themselves and the enemy, of course. Christina too. Slowly, with effort, she crawled across the floor.
Then it dawned on her. She didn't need to exert herself even though her body was in that state.
She could move herself with her magic, and that was what she did.
Desmond could see her shoulder, underneath the blood... the glow of bone, which was blindingly white, like the moon.
But that was all he saw.
The shadow had only focused on her for a few seconds, to see what she was doing, because she was an incredibly dangerous opponent.
After confirming that she wasn't a danger for the moment, his vision settled back on the sword.
It was pulling to rip the sword out of the wall.
And it was proving more difficult than it should be.
Due to the same force that had pulled the sword into the wall? In any case, that took it three hard tugs, with all his strength, all the weight of his body, to retrieve it.
And Amy? Desmond had already seen Christina, but what about Amy?.
"Give me your hand. I'll help you."
Desmond felt a chill.
He recognized that voice, of course he did. It was the voice he couldn't forget.
This chill was real, from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. But, of course, there was no fear in it. Just pleasure.
Or was there?
Was this reaction not his either, but that of the shadow that possessed him?
And had it been shaken by a shiver at the sound of the woman's voice because the creature also recognized that voice... and feared it?
The shadow turned his body backwards.
Toward the broken glass door.
Abigail, who had helped Amy up, was there. She had come, despite what she had told him... no, asked.
"Wow, wow. What luck." The shadow advanced, sword in hand, slowly toward her. "Tonight I'll kill two birds with one stone. Two big prizes."
Perhaps because of Abigail's special presence, no one moved, no one did anything.
As if they were frozen.
The only ones able to move were the shadow and Abigail herself, but she stopped moving soon after she moved away from Amy. And she just stood there where she was. Waiting.
-Better men than you have tried," Abigail said in a casual tone, simply stating a fact.
Dressed in white, with the moonlight falling on her from behind...
She looked as ethereal as ever.
A breathtaking beauty. That special "something" that made her not even look like a person of this world, or at least the ultimate expression of what a human being could be.
She wasn't armed with her knife.
Both of her hands were empty.
"There are no men like me."
"That's what all the children say. So eager to think they're special. To think they're something more than... a grain of sand in the vast desert. But it's never true."
The shadow spat.
"We'll see about that."
Abigail nodded slowly.
"Yes, let's put it to the test. Right here, right now." Then she spread her arms out to her sides. Leaving herself exposed.
As if inviting it to attack.
The shadow, however, didn't move its inch.
Could he sense its fear? Or was it not the enemy's fear, but Desmond's, the fear he had for Abigail?
He didn't know.
He supposed it didn't matter.
"What are you playing at?"
"I'm going to give you a free blow. Attack and I won't do anything. I won't move, I won't resist. I give you my word."
The shadow changed its posture. Extending its legs more, lowering its center of gravity.
Like a beast preparing to run.
Or to jump.
It was more beast than human.
"What does it matter? I know very well that nothing can kill you. Not forever. I'm sorry, but I'm not that easy to fool.v"
"I'm not giving you a chance to kill me, but to capture me. If you pierce my heart, I'll die for a while, and then you can tie me up and take me to the others. You'll have a perfect chance, in any case, whether you'll succeed is another matter. But at least I can assure you that you will."
"Why would you do that? It doesn't make any sense."
"It's a bet. I'm betting Desmond won't hurt me."
"Oh, yeah?"
The shadow grabbed his sword with both hands.
Abigail wasn't serious, was she?
She didn't know how she thought this worked, but even though Desmond had tried so hard, hard enough to vomit blood, he hadn't even managed to move his eyes or a single finger.
Abigail wouldn't win the bet.
She would be run through by him and while that wouldn't kill her, if she was captured because of him, for trusting him....
Desmond couldn't live with that guilt.
Just the thought of what could happen was tearing him up inside.
"All right, let's go then!"
The shadow howled and lunged for Abigail like a wild beast.
As promised, she didn't move an inch, she kept her arms outstretched, waiting. Then Desmond knew that she really wouldn't move.
That there was no trick, no trick at all.
The shadow swung the sword in what would be a lethal attack.
Aiming for Abigail's heart.