Chapter 104 – The Third

Matt didn't see the hit coming.

He had looked away for only an instant, hand still extended toward an Aurora who wasn't answering.

That instant was enough.

BAM!

The shaft of the scythe slammed into his side. The air went out of his lungs all at once and Matt felt his feet leave the floor.

THUD!

His back hit the broken tiles. The metal spear came apart in midair, turned back into scattered mana, and vanished before it touched the ground.

Matt lay there for a second, looking at the ceiling.

Lucrecia lowered the scythe.

For the first time in the whole fight her smile disappeared.

She tilted her head and looked down at him with an expression that wasn't mockery or victory.

It was confusion.

"What's wrong with you?"

Matt didn't answer.

Lucrecia nudged his shoulder with the tip of her foot.

"Hey. I just knocked you down. You didn't even try. You were dodging everything before."

Matt went on looking at the ceiling.

"You were fighting well."

Lucrecia frowned.

"And now you're suddenly lying there like a piece of furniture? Is this a trap? If it's a trap, it's a very bad one."

Nothing.

Matt closed his eyes.

Lucrecia kept talking. Something about whether he'd hit his head, or whether that was some technique she didn't know about.

Matt wasn't listening to her anymore.

Her voice went distant, the way someone sounds talking in the next room.

He had more important things to deal with.

◇◆◇

Matt opened his eyes.

He was no longer in the castle room.

He was standing in a wide dining room with a high ceiling and a long dark wooden table in the center.

The chairs were arranged the way they always were.

Matt walked to the corner where there was a couch Moon used to lie on.

Aurora had taken to claiming it as her own over the last few weeks. She would sprawl there for hours, face down, arms hanging over the edge, complaining that Matt didn't take her out enough.

The couch was empty.

Matt looked at it for a moment.

"Aurora."

His voice bounced off the walls and came back alone.

"Aurora."

Nothing.

Matt left the dining room and went down the hallway. He opened doors as he walked.

The room that used to be Noxx's, empty. Sun and Moon's, empty as well. All of them a mess, because neither Matt nor Aurora wanted to clean them.

The room with the things he remembered from his human life, where Aurora sometimes played, empty.

"Aurora!"

Matt raised his voice this time.

The echo ran longer.

There was still no answer.

Matt picked up the pace. He reached the end of the hallway, a door they almost never used, and put his hand on the knob.

And there was Aurora.

She wasn't alone.

A girl had her held from behind, arms around her body and legs tangled around hers, pinning her completely.

Aurora was squirming, trying to get loose, moving her head from side to side. She couldn't speak. The girl's hand was over her mouth.

"Mmmh… Mmh!"

Aurora saw Matt and her eyes went wide, asking him for help without words.

The girl let out a soft laugh.

"What's the matter? You don't like being shown affection?"

She spoke into her ear and squeezed a little tighter.

"As loud as you always are, I thought you'd enjoy the attention."

Aurora kicked.

The girl didn't react at all.

Then the girl looked up and noticed Matt standing in the doorway.

Her expression changed completely.

The smile got wider, almost delighted, as if she had just run into somebody she'd been waiting for a long time.

"Ah. Hello."

Matt said nothing.

He couldn't.

He stood there, still, looking at her without entirely believing it.

The girl had white hair, long, split into two tails that fell over her shoulders. Pale skin. The features he already knew far too well, because he had seen them before in Noxx and in Iris.

Even in himself, when they made him look in a mirror.

Again.

Again he had the same thing in front of him.

The representation of his own vampiric power, made into a person, sitting on the floor of his own head playing with Aurora like she was a stuffed toy.

The girl noticed his silence and tilted her head.

"What a face. Well, I was curious..."

She loosened her arm a little, just enough to settle in better, without letting go of Aurora.

"So what? Are you planning to treat me the way you treated Iris?"

The girl smiled.

"Or the way you treated Noxx?"

Matt swallowed.

Neither option sounded good coming from her.

"How…?" Matt stopped, organized the question and started again. "How did you appear so fast?"

The girl blinked, as if the question struck her as almost sweet.

"Fast?"

She let out a little laugh.

"Depends what you're comparing it to."

"Answer."

"I am answering."

She shrugged with Aurora still trapped in her arms.

"Think about it, Papa. Noxx took forever, didn't she? Years. But I suppose you never understood why."

Matt said nothing.

"You were starving her," the girl said in an annoyed tone. "Ever since you separated from Iris, how long did you spend avoiding meat? She never tasted anything. And there weren't enough reserves in here either. Until you got trapped in that cave and drank blood... That's when she materialized."

Aurora stopped struggling.

She stayed there thinking about those words.

"But me…" The girl smiled wider. "With me it was different. I was fed very well. Mama saw to that. All that blood, all that strength she put into you… where do you think it went? The moment you separated from Noxx, it was obvious I was going to show up."

Matt frowned.

"I don't understand what you're saying."

The girl looked at him for a moment, then laughed. It was a short laugh, genuine, as if he had just done something adorable without realizing it.

"Your scared face is cute," the girl rested her chin on Aurora's shoulder. "Really. I don't know how you do it. I love it."

Something went tight in Matt.

He took a step forward, his body already committed to throwing itself at her, to tearing Aurora out of her arms and ending this once and for all.

But he stopped.

He froze mid-movement, one foot forward and his hands about to close.

Matt breathed in deep.

"What do you want?"

The girl raised her eyebrows. She looked him up and down, slowly, sizing him up.

"Well now. You really have changed, Papa."

Aurora took advantage of the lapse to try to bite her hand.

The girl squeezed again without even looking at her.

"You wouldn't have stopped before," the girl said, keeping her eyes fixed on Matt. "Do you know what you would have done? You would have thrown yourself at me without thinking. You would have hit me and hit me until you wore yourself out. Or you would have started screaming like a madman."

The girl tilted her head.

"But you just stopped. Only to ask me what I want."

Matt didn't answer.

Was she calling him Papa?

The girl smiled, and this time there was something almost disappointed in it.

"Don't tell me." The girl sighed. "Did weak little Noxx really soften you up that much?"

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