The Demon’s Bride

Elise strolled not a little far from the Church. Her first thought was to buy some gifts for William, her parents, and her aunt. After window shopping at the vendors on the streets, she spotted a clothing store for newborn babies and stared at a pair of red shoes that took her attention when she walked in a sight for a long moment. "This would look good for Betty," she thought to herself and stepped into the store.

She took the pair and looked at the shopkeeper to inquire. "How much is this one?" 

"Six copper young lady." The woman spoke and saw Elise nodding in approval to how cheap the pair was. "Then I'll take this one." She tucked in her hand on the inner pocket of her dress and pulled up seven copper to hear the woman spoke again. "A present for someone?" 

"My niece will be born early this month," Elise explained, joy bouncing of her eyes to place the coins on the woman's palm. The woman saw her excited face and couldn't help to smile back at the good news. 

"That must be surely exciting." The woman returned and passed the brown paper bag to her. "Thank you for visiting." 

Elise nodded and returned the woman's kind wishes. After an hour of visiting each vendor, Elise's hand was packed with several brown bags that now she reflected on how she has bought too much and how it would be a little burden for the people she would share a seat in the coach. The money she had been collecting to visit the capital has left to some leftover silvers that she could use for transport. Feeling that her travel in the capital was enough for today, she decided to go back home before the sky turns dark.

She walked over to search for a shared coach that was hoarding the street and caught one that would pass to the road of her town. When she entered, she noticed only a couple of people was inside the coach. Elise took a seat and leaned her back. 

"The dark sorcerers again. That damned beings, when would they stop making troubles and killing people?" A passenger of the coach spoke with his wife, staring at the newspaper covering the dark sorcerers with much hatred. 

"I fear that they would come to our town." The wife replied a hint of fear could be seen well from her face. 

"The sorcerers are with us, don't they? We don't need to worry." The man ensured but the woman's worries didn't seem to ease from her husband's convince.

"But who knows? The dark sorcerers are far stronger than the normal sorcerers. The safest place is only here in Afgard. As I thought, should we stay here instead and wait until the matter dies down?" The woman brought the topic and the man seemed to be tired after hearing her speaking of the matter over and over. 

"We don't have the money to keep on living in the capital. Don't worry too much, the Church would do something about it before we know it." 

Conversing aloud, Elise couldn't help but to overhear their argumentation the couple was having. Like how her parents were, it wasn't a new thing for her to hear people discussing the matter of dark sorcerers with grim. As the dark sorcerers used very different magic than the normal sorcerers, they were easily frightened by humans. They were referred as "dark sorcerers" out of the reason that they used black magic to forcefully summon frightening mythical beings from the abandoned land Marshfoth to the towns. 

When someone mentioned "The sorcerers" there was only one particular person who would float on her mind. The person who saved her from being a slave and the person she would ever be grateful to, Ian White the Lord of Warine. It had been nine years since she was adopted by the Scott family but her gratitude to the man never faded. She once heard from the person who sent her away, Kyle said that the Lord insisted on searching her adoptive home for her protection. After knowing that the Lord didn't kick her out due to anger but out of her safety, Elise settled her incentive to meet the people who have saved her, the people in White's Mansion. However, as a human, the weak being couldn't freely enter the Warine Land except for one title, the Churchmen. This was how she decided to work in the Church even with her parent's indirect oppositions. 

Elise looked down at the red bracelet on her hand, softly brushing her finger in the old twirling rope and continued to ride the coach with anticipation to see her family's face. 

The Sky had turned inky when Elise dropped off from the coach. They stopped not too far from the entrance of the town. A little walk and she would arrive at her house. With the cold breeze of the night and the season was near to Winter, Elise pulled the shawl she bought before and wrapped it to her neck, protecting herself from the cold.

At first, when Elise entered the town, she didn't notice anything out of place but soon something weird caught up to her mind. The town was too quiet for its own good. It was only seven in the evening, usually, most town folks would still roam outside of the place and sounds of chattering could be heard. Some of the hanging fire torches on the terrace of the houses had their fire extinguish and the wooden slake torches lying on the floor carelessly. The reticences the town had brought nothing but dread to the young lady.

There was no single sound other than the wind that blew over the clouds of dust on the path she walked on. Her steps froze. In the night, the silence was to shrilling to be true. She could feel a bad hunch crawling to the deepest of her heart and when suddenly she felt something over her flat shoes. Due to the scarce light, she had to strain her eyes to see that it was a person lying under her feet. She jolted back in surprise, it was truly a wonder why she didn't let out a scream. There was no way someone would sleep in the middle of the street and so there was only one possibility. The person before her had lost his life. She worriedly bent her back, putting aside the bag on her hand to move the hand that covered the person's face to see that he wasn't breathing anymore. Although she couldn't see clearly, she could feel liquid dripping down to the upper of her shoes and guessed it to be blood. Her hand covered her mouth as she inched forward. Her hunch was right! The man had died! Before she knew it, her legs ran in haste toward her house. 

Cold sweat drenched her pale forehead and when she arrived, she reached out her hand to the doorknob only to find that the door was opened slightly. That moment, she could feel heart thudded in a sinister melody. With a slight screeching noise, the room that was dark had a thick scent of a familiar fragrance. 

It was the rusty iron fragrance of blood.  

The last bag made out of chapped fabric that she brought in her shoulder dropped to the floor, making the things she placed inside her bag to settle out. The pair of small shoes that she bought for her soon-to-be-born niece rolled down to the floor to come to a stop at the body laying down coldly on the ground with red fluids pooling around them. 

"No..." She whispered, hoping that what she smelled wasn't true. At that time, the clouds of the scarlet moon slowly pulled the curtains of cloud that veiled them, letting a ray of light to appear at Sharon and Russel holding their hands together. Her uncle held his wife in his embrace, protecting his wife even as he had lost his life. 

"NOOO!!!!" Elise exclaimed, tears running down madly on her cheeks. She could feel her knees going wobbly but she couldn't stop now as she still has the rest of her family. Exerting her last energy that drained from fear, she ran to find the rest of her family. 

"Will-" she cried out, calling the name repeatedly until she came to a stop at the family room. Noticing the slippery liquid slithering out the small gap under the door, she immediately covered her mouth, turning the knob to see three people laying down on the floor and flopped down. 

Her mother, father, and her little brother laid down lifelessly. Their bodies had wounds that seemed as though a large animal with sharp teeth tearing open their skin. She ran her hand on their hands to feel their body turning cold like ice. The hazy muddly feeling dropped to her mind, numbness and disbelief shook her heart. 

"Eli- Elise..." Sharon's weakened voice came not far from the family room. She rubbed her eyes harshly when she heard the voice to clean her blurred eyes. She didn't hear it wrong, it was her aunt's voice. Before she was in surprise and hastily ran to the room, having no chance to confirm the death of her aunt and uncle. She grasped to the last hope of her aunt being only wounded after her uncle's protection and ran to the source of the voice. 

When she ran out to the corridor of the second floor, suddenly, her legs stopped in horror to the creature standing with its four legs in front of her. Her hand trembled to no avail. 

"Elise-" 

It was her aunt's voice. The same exact voice but what she met wasn't her aunt, it was a pair of an animal with the petrifying golden eyes that made her blood drained to warn her to escape. Reddish light from the moon passed before her to show a creature with the body of a lion but with a deformed head of a wolf. Traces of blood mixed with the hungry saliva dripped down from the corner of its mouth. The large protruding canine teeth glimmered with a silver glow. What resounded from its mouth was the sound of her aunt, Sharon but the creature was definitely wasn't her. When she finally understood what happen, Elise could feel cold running to her fingertips. The mythical beast in front of her mimicked her aunt's voice. 

There was once when she read about such a creature with a sickening body that contrasts with its head and its specialty in mimicking other's voices that it once heard. Yes, she wasn't wrong. The eerie creature standing across her was Leocrucota! A mythical being that close to the level four danger! 

Chill ran down her spine, she could feel the glaring golden eyes staring at her. She noticed the dreadful creature has placed its predatory eyes at her but hasn't made a move perhaps because it was observing whether she was alive or not. Upon more inspection of silence, the Leucrota looked hungry but dared not to make a move. Seeing this, Elise finally noticed that the Leucrucota had a bad sight. Leucrucota had an amazing nose, however, she was drenched with blood at the moment luckily blocking the Leucrucota from knowing whether she had bled to death or was still alive at the moment. She had no way out but to run, run as fast as she could. 

Taking the purse from her pocket carefully, she gulped nervously to throw it swiftly across the creature to make it turn hastily toward the jingling sound behind it. While the creature was occupied by the sound, she took the chance and quickly ran down the stairs to escape before the mythical with monstrous strength would end her life. 

Noticing the tapping sound from the human, an echoing hollow came from Leocrucota, it ran at an alarming speed to ran his claw to Elise when suddenly a circle of fire lit before the mythical beast. Elise couldn't spare time in trying to understand how the fire emulated out of the thin air. Her life was threatened and the only thing she could do was run in desperation. 

She exited the house, running on the stone path for a distance to trip over at something that was another corpse. She shrieked but quickly pulled herself together to stand again to suddenly feel a pang on her feet and stumble. She looked behind, staring at her ankle that sprained from the collapse before. 

Grounding her teeth she forced herself to constrain her ankle and hide somewhere. But her luck ran down. Not long, the growl came back again not far from Elise. It had arrived in front of her and cut the speed with its inhuman power. The creature seemed to be badly burned but it didn't stop its viciousness and vigor to eat her. She muffled her voice, facing up to see the creature smirk a little when it saw her froze at the spot unable to move. Gaping his mouth widely he moved forward with the intent to rip her body in pieces.

"Close your eyes." A nostalgic deep voice that was thin like an air appeared suddenly. Although it was swiftly, she caught a glimpse of bright red eyes moving in a precedent speed. The voice itself had a mysterious power that was somewhat cold yet shooting to ensure a sense of protection.

Elise obediently turned away her head from and shut her eyes tightly. Ian brushed his eyes nonchalantly over to the Leocrucota who had taken a step back in fear and provoked with a mocking grin. "Are you possibly too scared to fight with a male and instead pick on a female? How embarrassing." 

The last words were enough to burn the fear that once passed to the mythical beast. It replied to his declarant of war with a glare that was frightening for human to see and bellowed in resentment. As a being that was fast to provoke, he leaped to Ian to have his upper and lower jaw to be hold by Ian with two hands. He picked a smile when the mythical beast gurgled a grunt and tore the jaw to rip the body into two and threw the half pieces on the street. 

"Hurting my puppy, especially making her cry would need more than a life to sacrifice." He whispered a message to the air and saw the dead corpse of the mythical beings to be somewhat disgusting. He turned his face away and tapped Elise's shoulder lightly. 

"Are you alright puppy? You can open your eyes now." His confident voice brought a tinge of devilish charm entered Elise's ears.