Russo scrambled back toward the wall, fingers questing for his shot gun. He didn’t find it, of course. It was over by Steve’s sleeping form.
“Get the hell away from me you blood-sucker!”
“Russo…” I said.
Russo stopped, looking up at me.
“Oh god. Eli? They got you.” He said. Then he looked down at his hands. They were pale, pallid white. “They got us.”
“No.” I said, steeping down to look him in the eyes. “We won.”
[Minions: 1/1]
Russo’s hands explored his neck, then his own chest.
“I’m not breathing. Oh god.” He said.
I grabbed Russo by the shoulder, jerking him to his feet — and off the ground for a moment. My strength was almost triple what it had been currently — and it was hard to control. Russo flinched back. I set him down gently.
“We won, Russo.” I said. “And I need you to calm down. We need you. We can’t let anyone else die.”
Russo nodded his head shakily, then looked around the room at each of the bodies.
“Steve?” He asked, looking over.
“He lost an arm. But he lived. That’s what’s important. We can find a way to get the arm back.”
Russo balled his hands into fists.
“What happened?”
I told Russo that I had been infected when the first monster bit me, and that the poison had evolved and refined itself as I delayed it and absorbed others. He looked at me funny as I recounted taking the risk of absorbing more poison to fight it.
I explained the fight, how the vampire had killed him.
“The vampire killed everyone. Then you and Steve killed it?” Russo asked.
“Jason helped.” I said, staring at his body. I felt guilty. But not because I had killed him in a fit of uncontrolled frenzy. I felt guilty because I didn’t feel any remorse at all. Jason just looked like spent food to me, and that disturbed me more than the fact that I had killed him.
“More than helped. He gave everything, in the end. It was only thanks to him that we killed the Progenitor.” I added. All of that, and I hadn’t even considered resurrecting Jason.
Russo looked down at his hands again. His eyes glazed for a second as he looked over his system.
“My race has been converted to Lesser Vampire.” Russo said. “I have new classes available. And… I’m thirsty. But I’m alive. We can work around that, right? There should be a blood bank at the hospital. If it didn’t burn down. Oh god. I have to drink blood?”
Russo spun and slammed his hands against the wall. The wood paneling cracked. His shoulders heaved as he buried his face in a hand.
“You’re alive.” I said. “And we need you to keep everyone else alive. I’m stronger now. I’ll never be that weak again.” I said. The words came out angrier than I intended, steely. Then, unexpected even to myself, “I wont let anyone else die.”
Russo stepped back from the wall.
“You’re right. You’re right. We need to… we need to go. We’ve wasted enough time here. Should we wake up Steve?”
“No. Let him sleep. We can fetch him after we kill the monsters downstairs.” I said, looking down at him. Steve had watched me murder Jason. I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. I wasn’t sure I could pretend to care. And I feared the others rejecting me — leaving me alone in this castle — more than I feared the fact that I didn’t care about murdering him.
More than that, though, Steve was still shocked and seriously injured.
I looked back to Russo.
His mouth was open, and he was poking his canines. They were extended, long and pointed, and as he poked at them he extended and retracted them.
Russo grimaced at me. His eyes were red now, sharp teeth locked together over the stubble of dark brown hair that dotted his chin. His hair was shortened to a buzz cut. But his teeth were now all perfectly white.
“Do you have a mirror?” Russo asked. “I know — we need to go, but… I have to see.”
It was understandable, really. Russo had just died and been brought back to life in a completely different body. Mine was different, too.
“Not unless there’s one in here…” I said, looking back and forth across the room. There was, indeed, a mirror, next to the gigantic coffin and control seat.
I followed Russo to it. We both stared into the smooth, glassy surface, seeing the room behind us. We had no reflections in it.
“Well, shit.” Russo said. “Guess not. Let’s… let’s clear this nest out.”
Russo grabbed his shotgun on the way down to the staircase.
The second we stepped out of the throne room, there was a pop up from my interface.
[Alerts for government of (Nothing)]
[Internal threats: Hostile monsters within city walls. Eliminate all hostiles to enable city interface. Monsters remaining: 45]
[External threats:]
[Dungeon Break accumulating at north World Dungeon. Dungeon Break at 15%. Clear the dungeon to reset progress.]
[Monster nest expanding at Western City Wall. Clear or annex the monsters to remove threat.]
“We have a wall?” Russo asked.
I saw the vision of the city I had while sitting in the control seat. I was only able to see inside the city.
“Apparently?” I asked. “Maybe it just means the edge of the city…” I trailed off. “I think it’s rearranged the world outside.”
We stopped at the door. There was no longer any pounding coming from it.
Russo reached for it, but I stopped him.
“I’ll go first.” I said, prying free the makeshift barricade we had shoved inside. The wooden board had splintered, cracking in two and falling on the floor. The metal bars had bent. The door had barely held. I pulled it open.
Dim moonlight spilled inside along with pouring rain. The room below us was full of coffins hanging from the ceiling on chains. They spun now as wind howled, whistling as it cut into this level of the castle. Water pooled on the floor, picking up dust and turning gray. It rushed along the edges of the room and out.
The coffin in front of us spun around to reveal the vampire resting inside. It looked — I paused as I processed what I was seeing. It was a small, green man with glowing green eyes and frizzled gray hair. It was wearing a crimson frock coat with a raised collar. It’s collar was fixed with metal spikes shooting up and behind its head.
It looked like a goblin.
As soon as its glowing red eyes locked on mine, it hissed and jumped toward me.