Chapter 11
475words
Anna clutched my legs, face streaked with snot and tears. "Sister! I'm your big sister! Take me home! I want bread... even moldy bread!"
I stood motionless, staring down at her.
Carmilla approached, regarded her with disgust, and kicked her aside.
"Don't touch her. You reek of death."
Carmilla pointed at Anna's festering skin. "You've consumed corpse oil and toxins for too long. Your organs have mutated irreversibly. You're not vampire, but you're no longer human either."
Anna froze. She touched her face with trembling fingers, coming away with sticky pus.
"No... I am human... I AM HUMAN!" She clawed frantically at her face, tearing rotting flesh to shreds.
"You're neither human nor ghost." I stepped back from the black blood spraying from her wounds. "You're a monster caught between worlds."
The fire intensified. Castle pillars began to crumble.
"Let's go," I told Carmilla. "This place is coming down."
We turned toward the main gate.
Behind us, Anna howled in despair, crawling after us until a burning beam crashed down, crushing her legs.
The fire burned for three days and three nights.
Bathory Castle crumbled to ruins.
The blood-soaked den of evil finally vanished from this world.
Anna didn't die.
The vitality of hunters can be terrifyingly tenacious, even in mutated monsters.
The church's cleanup team dug her from the ruins.
Due to severe mutation and aggressive behavior, they classified her as a "Ghoul subspecies."
They imprisoned her in the church's deepest containment facility—a dungeon reserved for undead creatures.
No sunlight there. No silk. No ruby necklace.
Only endless darkness and a daily bowl of moldy slop.
They say she went mad.
She dances before the iron bars daily, wearing a sack as a gown, addressing rats as "Your Highness."
When guards pass, she presses her face between the bars, revealing half-formed fangs, and begs:
"Blood... please... just a taste... I need to stay beautiful..."
Morning sunlight spilled across the hillside.
Carmilla and I sat astride our horses on the hilltop, gazing down at the ruins.
"Is it over?" Carmilla asked, wind tousling her golden hair.
"For this place, yes." I polished my Colt before holstering it. "For us, it's just beginning."
Carmilla smiled, producing a fresh map from her coat. "I hear the northern werewolves are growing restless."
"Then let's pay them a visit."
I turned my horse, sunlight warming my face.
"By the way, Grandfather requested stew for dinner tonight."
"We'll need fresh beef then," Carmilla said, falling in beside me. "Unlike some who'll swallow any garbage for a taste of power."
I cast one final glance at the distant containment facility, a smile of relief tugging at my lips.
"Hyah!"
With thundering hooves, we raced toward the next dawn.
While in that eternal dark dungeon,
Anna continued indulging in her aristocratic delusion—a dream from which she would never wake.
