Irene. 

In the nick of time. 

I could have shouted out loud in relief. I would have. But then there was this high-pitch squeal which overshadowed whatever was going to leave my lips, leaving me in a temporary state of going nearly deaf. That banshee scream certainly wasn’t mine. 

Adding to the surrealness of it all, suddenly I saw Ria lunged at her, nearly knocking her over with the tightest hug I’ve ever witnessed. Phoenix girl gave another squeal of excitement but it was evident that Irene did not share the same sentiment. On the contrary, she looked positively dead inside. 

“Irene!” Ria cried out. “Too long! It’s been too long!”

Irene gave a grimace. “Riri…”

“Greetings later. Quiet now. I haven’t felt the touch of your body in literal decades… let me hold on to you a bit longer - shh, just give me a bit longer. I need this.”

With the biggest, most reluctant sigh she could muster, Irene relented to Ria’s crushing embrace. Silently and painfully. 

The flames flaring away from Ria’s hair radiated with an intensity so bright, it was almost blinding. Never seen her filled with so much joy before. Honestly, I’d be happy for her if only she knew how to pick the perfect time and place. 

Because right then, the ferocious growl emitting from right behind me was the total opposite of joy.

“The succubus.” Words spitted out like venom, the snarl on Amelia’s expression as she scrambled upright definitely did her tone justice. “You wench! How did you… how....”

Before Amelia could say or do anymore, however, her eyelids began to flutter… to sink, then, they closed shut. Amelia slumped to the floor with a resounding thud, her body, her expression - still and lifeless.

A second later, the sound of blissful snores filled the dead air. It was pretty loud, actually. 

“That was… surprisingly easier than I thought.” Irene had her hand outstretched, a stream of red vapor exuding, then evaporating, from her open palm. “How weak was she?”

“You could have coughed on her shoulder and she would have been out flat on her back. Hmph, and here she was saying she can handle her sister, no problem,” said Ria, finally untethering herself and stepping aside. “Never seen a weaker Matriarch in all my years. Then again, I’ve never actually seen a Matriarch before but that’s beside the point. The frenzied one must have really put up a fight to get her to this point.”

“Frenzied? Has she really?”

Ria nudged her head my way. “Your little vampire bait here can probably fill you in better than I can.”

Irene’s gaze found its way towards mine. Her stare at me was downright alarming… almost apprehensive looking. Fear, I thought… maybe worry, I didn’t know why she was looking at me that way. Then that’s when I noticed it. 

Beyond just the glimmer of her crimson eyes, Irene was… well, she was red, more specifically her skin color was. Still humanlike, still the same Irene but just… with horns, a tail, and also dark red. That wasn’t the only thing either… 

“You’re bleeding,” I muttered.

Surfacing aside old wounds, new ones have cropped up, still afresh and trickling. A gash on her forehead, large cuts on her skin. Her clothing too, or what remained of it, were left in tatters and threads. 

“Yeah,” she answered, walking, limping, her way over to me. “I noticed.”

There I was, just sprawled out on the dirty floor, marveling over at how ridiculous the situation I’ve gotten myself into actually was.

It almost sounded like the punchline to a bad joke. 

A human, an elf, a vampire, a phoenix, and a succubus were stranded in a narrow hallway, every single one of them looking worse for wear, and then the human said to the succubus -

“How the hell did you get in here?” 

To which the succubus promptly responded, “Magic.”

“The barrier…?”

“I had to force my way in. Wasn’t easy, believe me.”

“Your wounds…”

“It’ll heal.”

My glance fell to Ash’s slumbering figure. 

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“What did you do?”

“Short answer, I stopped her from killing herself. Long answer is I placed a spell on her that puts her in a temporary coma. People under it tend to have very good dreams while under its influence. I used the same thing on that Matriarch there. Doesn’t last long, but it gets the job done.” 

One last question.

“You’re red, why are you - “

“I can answer that one!” Ria piped up, her hand high up in the air. “Simply put: The succubus sucks at being a succubus. Which is kind of a paradox, really, since succubi are supposed to be good at sucking things, and yet she sucks. Which sucks.”

It’s amazing how someone can speak so much and say so little. I don’t think a single syllable in any of her words explained anything. 

Irene, after a bit of glaring in Ria’s way, was far more helpful in clearing things up.

“Succubi aren’t usually… well, they aren’t typically human colored,” she explained. “To make myself look like one, I had to alter how I looked. And so…”

“It’s a glamour,” Ria interjected, drawing up to her side, “Irene here wasn’t able to handle all the guys and gals swooning her way so she hid herself in human skin. A very intricate, very demanding piece of magic. I’m guessing she must have lost it trying to break through the barrier. Shame for you, hm, Irene?”

Regret and despair. If anything, that’s what I saw fill the void in Irene’s eyes.

“I was half-hoping it wouldn’t get to the point where you had to break that amulet,” she said, then muttered under a long breath. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Ahh, she admitted it! All it took for her was giving away the wrong amulet and she finally admitted it! Those long 50 years sealed away in that amulet was most certainly worth it now,” Ria’s smile was as bright as the flames in her eyes. “Love you, Irene.”

“Anyway, I’m surprised you actually bothered to show up,” Ria continued, “After what happened to you, I was so sure you would up and leave him for - “

“Rir - Ria, shut up for a moment, please,” Irene said sharply. 

Though that mocking smile still lingered, Ria complied with her demand and stayed silent. A silence in which Irene’s gaze found mine again, still with that same look of apprehension. 

Why does she keep looking at me like that?

“What do you remember?” She asked, bending down to level with my gaze. “From the motel to here… what do you recall?”

Wincing, I sat up. Contemplating, I slowly answered. “I remembered cutting myself. I remembered blood all around the room. Then… the Matriarchs - the sisters - they came into my head. Next thing I knew, I was here.”

Her eyes stared so deeply into mine, it was actually getting quite unnerving. 

“Nothing else?” she asked.

“You’re asking me that…” Something felt off to me. “Why? Was there supposed to be anything else?”

From the side, I saw Ria sending a broad grin my way. “Remember your 11/10 rating? 10 is mostly you, but that extra point didn’t just come out of nowhere. I’ll just leave it at that.”

“No, no, it’s nothing, ignore the idiot,” Irene said, her stare finally breaking away, shrugging it all off with the shake of her head. “Okay. Can you tell me what happened before I got here?”

Unfortunately for me, that uneasy feeling didn’t drop as easy for me as it did for her. Something was going on. There definitely was. But an answer wasn’t coming, judging by Irene’s somber expression. For now, I buried that feeling and began recollecting everything that has happened so far. 

From the moment of consciousness to bargaining with the Matriarch and everything else that happened in between. Finding the victims, hounded by the sisters, Adalia’s refusal of blood… when I got to the part on how Amelia had tortured me, Irene began to frantically shake her head.

“I’m an idiot, I’m an idiot.” She couldn’t even look at me anymore. “This was a mistake… I never should have let you done this.”

Ria raised an eyebrow. “Wow, three admittance of idiocy in a span of five minutes. I’m in heaven, aren’t I?”

I’ve never seen her this flustered before. The calm, collected detective had totally lost her composure. 

I tried reaching out for her shoulder in an attempt to reassure, but that only made her way shrink a few inches away from me. 

“You shouldn’t have gone through that,” she said, speaking more to herself seemingly than she was to me. “I shouldn’t have let you done that.”

“If you thought it was a mistake, why did you let me go through with it?”

“I didn’t think it was a mistake,” Irene answered, creases forming on her forehead. “At least, you didn’t make it seem like it was. You didn’t fight it, you didn’t argue. You were so eager… it was like you didn’t even care. Why didn’t you care?”

“I was saving a friend.”

“You were killing yourself.” 

Her words finished it. The silence, the tension… there wasn’t any way to break it. Not until Ria managed to anyway.

“Told you so,” was what she said to me, shrugging her shoulders.

Now I was getting annoyed. Why couldn’t they understand? If I wanted myself dead, I wouldn’t have had fought so damn hard to be here. I was here for Ash, the victims, I wasn’t here to just simply throw my life away.

“There are people about to die here,” I said, taking in a deep breath. “Ash was in danger… Amanda upstairs is on the verge of dropping dead. I can’t just let that happen. They’re people with family, friends… if I think I can do something about it, I will. Why must I walk away from it? Are you telling me I shouldn’t be doing anything? Why should my life be worth more than theirs?”

For a moment - nothing. No words were exchanged, our expressions on our faces conveying enough to know what was left unsaid. 

That infuriating gaze on Irene’s face… she didn’t understand.

The amused one on Ria’s… I doubt she was even paying attention.

And mine… well, I was honestly just really tired of it all.

“Why should my life be worth more than theirs?” reiterated Ria, smirking, still amused by it all, “Now, where have I heard that before? Ringing any bells for you, Irene?”

Not a smile, not a shred of amusement, Irene stood up, her brows slanted, her eyes glaring. “Let me ask you this then, O’ great hero,” she said. “Why should theirs be worth more than yours?”

There was another bout of silence again. Not because I didn’t want to speak, but because I just couldn’t. I didn’t know how to respond to that.

“Moving on,” Irene spoke again, kneeling before the slumbering Matriarch. “What were you talking to her about just now?”