Chapter 4

Victorique licked her fingers. It was uncouth to do so, but she was positively ravenous, Marionette washed up in a little brook that was nearby, and even caught some fish for them to nibble on while they journeyed through the forest. Victorique hummed a merry tune while she skipped along the forest path.

Food also gave her energy for her necromancy. She needed the nourishment. Perhaps she could’ve used the bear as a pawn in her Domination ability, but they needed food and they had plenty of rations to store for their long journey ahead.

“Marionette,” Victorique said sweetly. “I think that we’re beyond the edges of the forest. But from here on out, it will be a warzone. Do you think you can do your best to protect me from any harm?”

“That I will do, Mistress,” Marionette said with a fond smile towards her. “I will slice down any soldier that attempts to do anything to you.”

“Good. I’m going to do a little technique which will ensure both our safety.”

With that, Victorique started shaping some dirt golems to act as their meat puppets for the war ahead. It was a small, meager effort that didn’t take much energy, and Victorique already prepared some hearts for the dumb things as well. They were mindless things that only did as they were instructed, though that should be enough to serve her purposes, after all. The heart she prepared came from a crow that Victorique brained earlier…and she saved the heart from the bear they took down as well. The bear would serve as a big strong bulky defender while the crow golem’s heart would be their scout. Very useful indeed.

Marionette clapped.

“Mistress, what kind of technique is that?”

“I can make inanimate things into living things as long as I have a heart,” Victorique said. “I imagine that your master animated you as well, though he purposely didn’t give you a heart, did he? Cause I can see that something with you is greatly different from the things I animate”

Marionette shrugged. “I would like to have a heart, even if it’s not my own. The heart is the centerpiece of a living being. When I become human, I hope to give spare others from death, as long as I can.”

“Oh Marionette,” Vicotrique said as she lovingly put a hand against Marionette’s cheek. “Don’t you know that death is inevitable? That nothing can conquer death?”

“Mistress,” Marionette said kindly. “I try to ease suffering as best as I can. Even if it means putting things to death. I could tell that bear was suffering; so put it out of its misery, I killed it as swiftly s I could. Blades are more visceral than syringes, but feeling a little pain before they die is proof that they have lived.”

“Then, you cannot feel pain, Marionette?”

Marionette nodded.

“I have no sensation in my nerves. Perhaps it’s because I lack a heart, perhaps not. But what truly matters is, Mistress Victorique, is that I will do the killing for you so that you don’t tarnish your humanity further. Humanity is a beautiful, yet fleeting, thing.”

Victorique nodded as they edged their way out of the forest. The burst of cannon fire could finally be heard outside of the unnatural silence of the forest, and gunshots rattled through the smoky air. Death everywhere. Senseless war.

“Mistress, it was a brilliant idea to make golems,” Marionette said with admiration

“Always be prepared so they say. First, we’re going to have the golem with the crow’s heart scout out the area and determine the safest route for us,” Victorique said as she said the miniature floating golem aloft and sent it high in the sky where it overlooked vast grasslands and boulders and valleys for coverage of possible enemy soldiers.

When the golem floated in the air and sent back images to Victorique’s eye, Victorique saw a stray bullet tear through the golem’s hide. IT was a pathetic thing really, but at least they knew what direction the sniper was at. Victorique had a feeling that the sniper was hiding somewhere beyond the edge of the forest. The golem with the bear’s heart would lead first and they’d trek their way to the sniper’s location so that they didn’t have to worry about him. Or her.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Victorique slowly motioned for Marionette to follow her behind the gigantic golem that Victorique prepared, making sure to use a few stray trees for coverage and hiding in the tall grass. They trekked further outward from the forest into the more open land area, which was an ideal location for a sniper to pick off anyone who dashed off for easy pickings. But that’s why Victorique prepared the clay golems.

“Okay, Marionette,” Victorique whispered as she hid behind a large rock that provided coverage against bombs and smoke and snipers. “I want you to flush out the sniper. When you do, make sure that you do not kill them. We need information out of this guy.”

“Will do, Mistress,” Marionette said in a whisper before she darted in the open area. She avoided any bullet that came to her direction with inhuman speed or sometimes deflected them with her blades. Victorique smirked as she lay in her hiding place.

She heard a boot crunching into the dirt. She was careless!

Before Victorique could escape, she was grabbed by an enemy soldier who held her by the wrist.

“What do we have here?” he said in a lazy drawl while Victorique struggled.

“Don’t touch me, you filth!” Victorique screamed as she punched him in the chest. It was like soft dough pounding against his chest.

“You’re far too valuable to let go,” the soldier said. “We heard that there was a witch from Saberia coming out of the forest.”

Victorique gritted her teeth and cursed. Old Man Severus’s work, no doubt. Did he send a messenger crow outside of the village towards the soldiers about her? Even in death, he was still a nuisance.

“Marionette will come,” Victorique said before the soldier chuckled.

“Marionette is the one who betrayed you to our cause,” The man said. “Come here, little girl. We’ll reconsider taking your life if you answer some questions very carefully.”

Victorique’s breath stilled. How dare they question her! She was the one who should be stepping on them like the cockroaches they were underneath her heel, no the other way around!

“What do you want?” Victorique said in a bland tone.

“We want you to please kindly die,” the soldier said. “If that’s not too much trouble. Of course, you always have to go and make everything inconvenient. You have not died at all, but instead, plague like a pestilence.”

“You are the blight of this earth,” Victorique spat. “How dare you suggest that I’m the defective one?!”

“Marionette did well,” the soldier said admiringly. “First of all; is it true that you’re immortal?”

Victorique spat. He wrenched her wrist. Victorique didn’t give him the satisfaction of crying out, but saints and sinners, that hurt.

“I’m not telling you a thing,” Victorique said with bitterness in her tone.

“Is it true that you can bring back the dead into the world of the living?”

Victorique showed a sharp-toothed grin towards the man. “Poor wretched man. You will eventually become one with the bones and dust of this place.”

He slapped her.

Victorique laughed.

“You would not handle the Grim Reaper so lightly if you knew what she was capable of,” Victorique said as she slowly unhinged and began to cackle slowly, then more fiercely and intensely.

Victorique then kissed the man.

The man’s eyes widened.

Victorique started to purge the man’s soul from his body into her own. He struggled against her, but Victorique clasped onto him tightly and fed on him. He became a withered dried husk and turned into dust and ashes after she drained every single droplet of life from him.

She sensed Marionette behind her.

Victorique turned and grinned, a manic smile on her face.

“Oh Marionette….who’s been a naughty girl? Trying to backstab the Grim Reaper herself? Ha, you’re a riot! I like you girl, but it’s time for your punishment.”

Vicotrique saw uncertainty in the brunette’s eyes.

“Mistress…” Marionette said slowly. “What do you intend to do with me? I’m merely disposable.”

“I’m going to keep you around,” Victorique said lightly. “But I want you to wait on me hand and foot. There’s no overpowering me, you see? Poor pitiful Doll that you are, you were hoping to send me off with the soldiers so that you could make money, could you? How much money did these people pay you off with to end my life, you wretched girl?”

“A lot,” Marionette said. “But that doesn’t matter now. Mistress will continue being an intriguing person to follow, for her soul is one that I cannot swallow and savor. I will make a deal with the Devil right here and right now.”

“Oh?” Victorique said wit ha sharp-toothed grin. “Why should I trust anything that you have to say, especially you’ve been paid off through greedy satisfaction?”

“That is true, Mistress, though I hereby make an oath right now that I offer myself to you thoroughly and totally,” Marionette said while bowing towards the blond-haired girl. “You use your ability Dominate on me, can’t you? If Mistress so wishes, she can Dominate me and know that I speak truly right now.”

“If you insist,” Victorique said sweetly, before she used her domination magic on Marionette.

Marionette’s eyes fluttered slowly, then they became blank. After a while, they shone again wit ha new vigor and light, and Victorique was most pleased to find that there was something inside of Marionette in place of a soul. So the Master of Shadows and Death displaced her soul with a Relic that was said to be cursed by the demons? No wonder why Victorique sensed that Marionette was trying to take her soul from her. She was an abomination.

“As you have willingly given yourself up to me,” Victorique said, her grin stretching farther on her face.

“My first order for you is to kill yourself.

“As you wish, Mistress,” Marionette said, before she stabbed herself through the heart.