Chương 14: Chapter 13 – She gave her head

The blackout blinds had already come down by the time we finished banging. Ophelia's bedroom drowned in pitch dark. No light leaks around window frames, no glowing electronics, nothing. Just pure, absolute black. I lay there for a moment, feeling the silk sheets against my skin and the warm weight of Ophelia sprawling over my chest. Her breathing was slow, almost imperceptible. How nice of her to simulate breathing even in bed. The contract was over. From sunset to sunrise, she'd said.

The sun was up now, as the blinds confirmed. Everything she did from here on was off the books. My body ached pleasantly, as I enjoyed the exercise. Plus, the photoshoot had been something. When she'd written the terms, she wanted pictures. I'd agreed, expecting ammunition for Cassandra. Embarrassing pictures of her toying with me, the sort of thing that would get under Cassandra's skin. That was the stated deal, and why I thought she had agreed to come to the ceremony in the first place. I was wrong.

Yes, there were some collars, shackles, cuffs, and ropes involved. But that was less than two percent. The remaining ninety-eight percent was something else entirely. Matching cosplays. Historical outfits. A Victorian couple. A pair of 1920s gangsters. Pirates. Samurai and geisha. Doctor and nurse. Policeman and a criminal. Farmer and farm maid. She had professional lighting equipment, backdrops, and a camera that could actually take a picture of her.

We posed together like we were shooting an engagement announcement for a magazine spread. Not a single picture was embarrassing in any way. Now, lying in the dark, I had no idea what to do with that. She stirred against me, her hand tracing across my chest.

"You're thinking too loud."

"Sorry."

"Don't be." She propped herself up, and even in the absolute darkness, I could see the faint glow of her eyes, red, like distant embers.

"Ready to become a part of my immortality?" I snorted. That was one way to put it.

"Sure."

"Good." She smiled, fangs slipping out of her gums.

"I prefer the prey to struggle, but we can roleplay that next time." She sprang up my body, and bit me. The second I felt the sting, she tore herself off me with an unearthly shriek. The fuck? I got up, grabbing my phone to turn on the torch. Ophelia convulsed on the floor, her face literally melting and regenerating at the same time.

"Can I help somehow?" She couldn't talk, spasming on the floor. In one spasm, she reached under the bed, and drew out a long, thin sword. She tossed it at me. I got the point, grabbed the hilt, got out of the bed, stepped in, and slashed in an upswing. I cut off her head clean. It rolled over. The rest of her body shook, and collapsed into blood. It reformed in an instant with a new head. She knelt on the floor, panting.

"What the fuck was that?"

"You tell me!" I dropped the sword, doing my best to not look at the severed head, half of which had melted.

"There's something wrong with your blood." She looked at the severed head. Her eyes shone, and the head burst into flames. Within a few seconds, it burned to nothing.

"I've never even heard of that happening." I sat back down, offering a hand to help her up. She took it. I pulled her up, and slid her into the bed.

"Cassandra told me she couldn't drink me because we were related." [LEVEL UP!] [AVAILABLE STAT POINTS: 5] [PLEASE SELECT ALLOCATION] It had to be fucking kidding me. I selected endurance, and confirmed it. Yes, I confirmed again. No skill selection.

"That's not a thing. I can drink my mother, my brothers, or Cassandra just fine." Oh. Someone was lying, and her name started with C.

"You all right?"

"Yeah." She exhaled, sprawling over the bed, panting.

"How are you so fine? Even I am tired after the evening and the night." I smiled.

"I've got a lot of endurance."

"How much? I did expect a lot, based on the combat footage I had seen of you, but you've exceeded all expectations. I pegged you as having about five hundred endurance, but you're not tired at all by any physiological sign." She slid up, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"The pressure in the veins hasn't changed by a percentage point from when you came to now. By the way, are you into getting pegged?"

"No, I'm really not." She smirked.

"On my birthday then." I snorted.

"Anyway, I'm glad you're okay. I've got over a thousand endurance." She laughed, the sound surprisingly warm.

"That's quite the number. And I really don't say that often. The sex was great too." I couldn't argue with that. She didn't last long, but she screamed a lot, which made it intense. That was great.

"How do I compare to Kallisto?" She just had to say it, didn't she?

"Do we really need to—""Yes." I turned off the torch, no need for me to stare at the burnt spot in the carpet.

"There isn't much to compare."

"There always is."

"No, I mean..." I exhaled.

"It's not really a relationship. She'd call it anything but a relationship. I'm not sure what I'd call it." Ophelia was quiet for a moment.

"That's not what I asked."

"I know… Kallisto is… tough. She's the original inspiration for my endurance-stacking build. She can take a nuclear warhead in the face and barely sustain a bruise. She never gets tired, never slows down, never sleeps or rests. So, with her, everything takes time." She let out a wheeze of a laugh.

"That must be awesome."

"Oh, yeah? Get an inflatable doll, put on a strap, pound it for four hours straight, and come tell me how much fun it was. And be sure to keep some snap in the hips, because she complains when it's not there. She needs to be put on some heavy-duty machinery for a few hours for foreplay." She giggled, studying my back in the dark. Then she dropped into the bed.

"That is an amusing image. Now, what are those?" She pointed above the bed. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I pushed power into my eyes. Void Gaze + Blood Magic. The world's colors inverted, and indeed, faint teetering clouds floated all around the bed. Wispy, unstable, barely there.

"That's the first time someone noticed them." She snorted.

"Thank you. I've got good sense for magical bullshit. So, what's that?"

"I don't know." That was the honest answer.

"The System tagged me with a status called Aura of Instability some time ago. No explanation, no description. Since then, I produce these when I fight." Or fuck, apparently.

"And we did a lot of that." She smirked. Then her eyes narrowed, and whatever she was looking at wasn't me anymore. She was studying the particles with senses I didn't have.

"When did this start? Specifically."

"After I got caught in an explosion of kaiju powder."

"Kaiju powder." She said it flatly.

"As in, refined kaiju organic matter?"

"Probably. I didn't read the prospect as I was being blown up." She sat up fully now, the playfulness gone from her face.

"And then the System gave you this status."

"Right after, yes."

"Peter." She looked at me with an excited intensity that was new.

"This feels like chaos powers. Maybe the kaiju powder explosion awakened some dormant power in you. That's exceedingly rare, but it does happen." That lined up with the book I'd stolen. The Energies of Emptiness described chaos as an energy foundation defined by irregularity and instability. Two hundred pages of a mage far beyond my understanding lamenting the impossibility of studying something that, by definition, refused to hold a pattern.

"I've read some texts about that," I said.

"The author's conclusion was that it's impossible to find patterns in something defined by not having patterns."

"As if I knew anything about magic theory." She grabbed my shoulders. Her eyes practically glowed.

"Do you have any idea how awesome this is? Can you do anything with it?"

"Not yet."

"Do tell me when you do. I'd love to see it." She practically bounced. Then she caught herself, settled back down, and yawned.

"But not today. The sun's up, and I need to sleep." She stretched again.

"If you need to go, you know where the shower is. The door will seal itself after you." If I needed to go. I didn't expect that.

"Got it. Thanks." She pulled the covers over herself, becoming just a shape in the darkness.

"Text me later. We'll figure out the outfits for the Vatican event. Till then, kill something ugly for me." I got up and felt my way to the bathroom. The lights in there were normal, thankfully, and the shower was one of those fancy rainfall setups with seventeen different settings. I stood under the hot water for a long time. The scratch marks on my back stung. She could have licked those too. Then again, I had so many scars that a few more didn't matter, as natural regeneration didn't completely heal scars.

I dried off, got dressed in last night's clothes, and made my way out. The elevator took me down to the parking garage. I found my car where I'd left it and slid behind the wheel. I sat there for a moment, not starting the engine. I tried to feel guilty. I really tried. As I sat in the parking garage of a Manhattan penthouse, wearing yesterday's suit, covered in hickeys and scratch marks, smelling like a vampire's bedroom, I couldn't muster the tiniest shred of guilt. Because there was nothing to feel guilty about.

Kallisto had told me, in her own words, that she didn't do the girlfriend thing. She'd told me to take my side bitches. When I'd packed to leave for Philadelphia, she hadn't looked up from her pad. When I'd said goodbye, she'd said don't die, you're entertaining. We'd traveled the world together. We'd lived together for over a year. I'd tried. I'd genuinely tried to turn it into something. I asked her to come to the ceremony, and she said take one of your side bitches, my powerplant won't build itself. So I did.

And I'd enjoyed every second. Not because Ophelia was better than Kallisto. But because Kallisto had never offered anything to compare to. There was no relationship to betray. There never had been. I wanted there to have been. Cheating would have meant there was something real enough to break. Instead, there was just Kallisto being Kallisto. A fallen angel who loved anime more than anything in creation, and treated everything else, including me, as furniture that occasionally had a use. I started the engine.

The guilt wouldn't come, so sadness took its place. I let it ride shotgun and pulled out of the parking garage. My phone had seventeen notifications. Most were from the squad group chat. Logistics stuff about training schedules. Nothing important. And one from Cassandra. I opened it. The picture Lillith had taken at the ceremony stared back at me. The selfie of me, Ophelia, and Lillith, all crammed together. Lillith's shit-eating grin on perfect display. Below it: 'Call me when you can.' This was going to be good.

I pulled onto the street, merged into traffic, and called her. She picked up on the first ring, answering with intense silence.

"Hey, Casey," I said.

"Why do you think I'm calling you, rather than texting?"

"So you could shout at me."

"Yes." Her voice dropped an octave, drawing a long breath.

"So I can SCREAM MY FUCKING LUNGS OUT. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" I merged into the left lane.

"I can explain—""Can you? Can you really? And don't even think about decreasing the volume." She managed to shout even louder.

"I woke up to Lillith's little teaser photo and six hundred and fourteen photos of you and my goddamn sister in matching costumes, looking like an engagement shoot!"

"That was the photoshoot, it was part of the—""I know what it was part of! I'm not an idiot, Peter! Do you know what the pictures were about?" I smirked.

"I think you're about to tell me."

"Yes, since you're using intelligence as a dump stat, I do have to tell you. My dear sister sent me a detailed review of the sex, with ratings across seven categories and a composite score. She hasn't done that in my life yet. Do you understand what that means?" Nope, but all I had to do was wait a few seconds to find out. Cassandra's voice dropped from a scream to something worse.

"Let me explain something to you, my dear apprentice. Ophelia hasn't had a relationship in over fifty years. She was desperate for a relationship forty years ago. Do you have any idea what it takes for someone as hot as her to be single for half a century?" I shrugged.

"I don't know why you're asking me questions you know I don't know the answer to." Her voice picked up the pitch again.

"That everyone knows better than to fucking do that. Every single of her relationships, and there have been a few over the past five hundred years, ended with her killing her partner. And everyone knows that. Those who don't know, have heard the line don't stick your dick into crazy, and are smart enough to follow it. Most people do both." The pieces clicked into place. All those costumes and carefully staged photos were a test of how we would look as a couple. Judging by how the rest of the night went, I passed.

A chill ran down my spine.

"And based on what she told me this morning," Cassandra continued, "she has decided she likes you. Congratulations, Peter. You now have a vampire girlfriend till your death does you apart. No refunds."

"And if I'm not interested?"

"Then your death will come sooner than you would like it to. Ophelia wouldn't stand such an insult, and she would call a blood feud on you. Then every high vampire in existence will consider you to have insulted one of their own. You will be hunted. Not that others would matter much though, because I will catch you within an hour." She let that sink in.

"And trust me, Peter, you will not enjoy my new tentacle pit. Introducing you to it would be the first necessary step in the disciplinary action I would be forced to take on you for breaking my sister's heart. Refusing her isn't an option, so don't even think about it." Would she hunt me? Yes. Still, I wanted to hear it.

"Would you really go after me?"

"With great enthusiasm." No hesitation.

"And no, not for Ophelia, but because ignoring every warning I've been giving you warrants the harshest of punishments."

"Well." I kept my eyes on the road.

"Thanks for the warning, I guess."

"As if that ever made any difference. My tentacle pit is made for girl pets, but trust me, I will find a way to add some girthier and spikier tentacles." She hung up. Two minutes later, a file dropped into the group chat we made ages ago with Cassandra and Lillith. Ah, time for semi-public humiliation. Lillith reacted with a popcorn emoji. The name read: Ophelia's partner requirements. I sighed and opened it while keeping a stable speed in the lane.

'Requirements for Ophelia's partner: 1) Can put up a fight (but not too much) 2) At most six feet one inch tall (so he doesn't overshadow me) 3) Low enough net worth (so he stares when I flex my wealth) 4) >200 strength (so he can hold me down when I earn it) 5) Not an academic 6) Looks 5-7/10 (so he doesn't diminish my shine) 7) Neutral at best relationship with his mother 8) Positive relationship with Cassandra (crucial!) 9) Trusting/gullible personality 10) Tasty blood 11) Weak survival instinct (for obvious reasons) 12) History of a stable, faithful relationship 13) Penchant for making bad decisions I texted back.

'Very funny.' Cassandra called again. I picked up.

"What is this?"

"Exactly what it's named after." This time, she laughed. The screaming fit had apparently run its course.

"We made it with my sister about six years ago, when things got really desperate about her being single. I've got you thirteen for thirteen." Hmph. Should I tell her about the blood incompatibility? No, that was for Ophelia to say. Cassandra didn't need to hear a story of Ophelia's face melting away. If Ophelia wanted to share that, it was up to her.

"I'm not gullible."

"But of course not, how could I ever think otherwise?" She chuckled.

"You will learn to listen to my warnings the hard way. And by the way, your brother is around where I am right now. Anything you do to my sister, I will do to him."

"Get a good mouth wash then, because you'll be sucking a whole lot of dick." She tried to eat the snort, but failed. I heard it, and she knew that I did.

"You are impossible," she finally said. I realized the countryside didn't look right. Everything was fine on the right-hand side. On the left, an eighty-foot kaiju had just blown apart a house.

"I need to go," I said to the phone, hung up, and pulled over to the highway's side. I wasn't sure how much Cassandra was bullshitting, but I expected it to be somewhere north of ninety percent. No one bullshitted like Cassandra. Whatever I had with Ophelia was going to be our business, no matter how much Cassandra nosed around. Though it did bring a smile to my face that my brother made it to the secret societies.

We weren't going to meet anytime soon, but Cassandra was going to give him the introduction to how things worked around here that he was going to remember for the rest of his life. If he wasn't such an asshole, I might have even felt bad for him. Though right now, I had to figure out how to kill a five-hundred-ton kaiju.