The air in the study was heavy with a bubbling tension between the two remaining men. And after being forced to remain calm in the face of Fredericks’ belligerence, Zorren had little temperance left to spare.

  “What do you think you are doing!?”

  Vrastus wore a look of sarcastic shock and held up his hands innocently.

  “It was an honest mistake,” he whined, “I had truly forgotten to tell you.”

  Zorren would have none of it.

  “You knew he was unstable! Telling him such information now would only serve to push him further from reason. You’re actions have not only undermined me, but they have threatened our plans. If Frederick does something stupid, he could expose us!”

  Vrastus let a ruthless smile inch across his face as he spoke.

  “Then I suppose we will just have to do something about it.”

  “You…”

  Zorren was nearly upon him now— inches from his face. The unsettling and ghoulish familiarity with which Vrastus disregarded morality was becoming too much to bear. He was an unsavory, unnatural man.

  There was only one reason he had incited such wrath in Frederick and both he and Zorren knew it. Zorren lowered his voice to Vrastus as he spoke: a stern, yet honest petition met with sinister indifference.

  “I understand full well that the nature of our business demands of us certain sacrifices. But if you do not find a way to abate your blood-lust, then you will be dealt with for the menace that you are.”

  Vrastus’ smile did not waiver.

  “You do not command me, Zorren. And if you are so keen to question my methods, perhaps you would prefer a demonstration?”

  Zorren laughed.

  “Cease your petty threats. We have long since established that if you had wanted to kill me, you would have done so. The fact that you have not, speaks to your need of me. So let us save our breath—”

  In a flash, Vrastus pulled a long and crooked dagger from his cloak and pressed its cold steel against Zorren’s neck. He held it there, pressing down on his flesh such that with every pulse of Zorren’s beating heart he could feel the tip of his dagger bob up and down. Yet Zorren made no move, nor did he plead or change his expression.

  Vrastus waited for a crack in Zorren’s veneer, but none came. And so he smiled ever wider and pressed the dagger with more force, until a small bead of crimson appeared. Zorren’s eye twitched ever so slightly at the sting, but he remained resolute.

  As the two faced off, Vrastus fought to stay his hand. He was so tempted to slit Zorren’s throat. Oh, so tempted.

  Just a push. Just a flick of his wrist, and it would all be over.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Sweet death.

  It had been so long— far too long.

  Just one cut and—

  The door to the study creaked open and a voice filled the room.

  “Zorren? Are you finished? We must go now if we are to make it in time for…”

  Allan slowly lost his voice as he observed the scene before him.

  Vrastus could practically smell the fear on Allan: he could hear his heart jump and his pulse race.

  “We are done,” Zorren said as he pulled himself away from Vrastus’ dagger.

  Vrastus remained in a trance like state and said nothing.

  Allan stuttered to speak but Zorren held up a hand to silence him.

  “We are fine, Allan. Just a simple disagreement.”

  Zorren pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it to his neck. He pressed it against his wound and it stung greatly. A complicated anguish then twisted Zorren’s face as he thought.

  “You may be right after all, Vrastus.”

  At this admission, Vrastus turned toward Zorren and made eye contact.

  “Perhaps…” Zorren began, “Perhaps I have avoided doing what was necessary for far too long.” Zorren gripped tighter to the handkerchief and pressed it firmly against his neck. “As of this moment…you have my permission to do as you wish.”

  With that, Zorren turned from the room and descended into the dark of the tower stairwell. Allan looked strangely between the two of them, then scurried off after Zorren.

  As the silence crept in around him, Vrastus stared down at the dagger in his hands. He had heard the words Zorren had spoken to him; and, on some level, he knew and understood their meaning. But he could not bring himself to entertain them. There was instead, burned into his mind’s eye, only one thing— that small drop of crimson.

  Vrastus clutched suddenly to his chest and staggered backwards.

  What was before a wanton desire had now morphed fully into a maddening starvation. A weight grew heavy around his neck and pulled at him like a noose. He was breaking.

  He would not last.

  How long at it been since his dagger tasted flesh?

  How long since he had fed— since It had fed?

  Far too long. For Vrastus could now feel his entire body spasm, as his limbs became weak. He collapsed onto the ground and felt the sweat gather beneath his cloak. A crushing desire swept over him and wrapped tight around his skull. He could take it no longer.

  It had to end.

  From within, an eternity of unrelenting and unyielding torture wracked upon his soul such that he could no longer bear it. His eyes closed shut from the searing pain, but he found no reprieve amidst the darkness.

  The darkness was where It lived.

  And it was then that that most abominable and wicked thing gazed long into his mind from the dark void beyond the edges of the world. A swirling chaos of Stygian vapor tore at his skin and flesh and bone, engulfing him. Claws which thirsted to rend skies and stars and even time itself sank impossibly deep and would not yield.

  It was an entity of horrid madness, beyond the machinations of any living or dead thing, which stood titanic and terrible beyond the aeons of creation.

  “Forgive me….” Vrastus whispered between erratic breaths. “I will not deny you…any longer!”

  Then suddenly it was gone.

  Vrastus tore his eyes open and felt his body once again on the floor of the Magistrate study. As his vision slowly returned to him, he could make out the grain pattern running through the wooden floor boards, punctuated with dents and splinters along an otherwise even surface. With great effort, he rolled over onto his back and stared up at the rafters. Then, by one difficult breath at a time, he calmed himself. And with a newly steadied hand, Vrastus gripped tight to the handle of his dagger and grinned.

  “It will not be long…” he whispered to the silence, “Not long at all.”