The Demon’s Bride

His father screamed for help, yelling "Demons! Demons!" And when his eyes found Sarah, his wife the man yelled, "Bring the holy water!"

Lady Sarah seemed to have snapped in it and immediately pulled out the flask which she held from her pocket before throwing it over Ian's face. Ian had never touched the holy water as he was a newborn demon but he knew the effect of holy water had been said dangerous to the evils. Quickly he protected himself by creating a shield in front of him, reflecting the water to Sarah who then realized she was out of another weapon to protect herself.

In such moment Lord Ivan had pushed himself from the ground and threw over his wife who was on the way, shoving her toward Ian before making an escape for himself. Lady Sarah who fell to the ground had her jaw floored upon seeing how quick her husband had casted her away. 

Ian stared at his father's escaping figure and narrowed his eyes, "Once a coward always a coward. Did you think he would protect you, Sarah after he had casted his first wife like an old used rag?"

"N-No! Don't come near me!" Sarah screamed when Ian came closer. The woman tried to crawl on the floor and Ian let her so. He casually made his way following Sarah from behind and stopped at the statue that decorates the corner of the doors. One of the statue held a silver cross and Ian had his eyes fixed on the cross from the statue's hands watching it and the reflection of his red eyes as he hummed.

Sarah who saw how the door she had been trying to reach toward was near Ian became nervous as it was the only door she could escape the room from, "W-What do you want?! If it is an apology, I will do it. I'm sorry! I'm really sorry to your mother and you… I have a son just like you and I lived from the poverty… I can't lost what I had and I wanted to escape from that living hell!"

"Now, who had been the one to save you from that living hell, Sarah?" Ian questioned the woman patiently. He used his index finger and thumb to slide along the blade of the cross, "That's correct. There was a very beautiful and gentle lady stopping by your side. Giving pity to you, she had gave you a slice of bread and gold for you to survive and even told you that she would lend you help any time you need. She pitied you because you had once been in the same position as her. Yet you… stole her husband out of jealousy."

Lady Sarah became scared, "How do… you know this?"

"Memories, Sarah," Ian tapped his head, "I have an excellent memory and my mother had a better one than mine. Did you think she forgot about you? No. It was extremely painful living in the village but not because we are poor. I can live with a slice of bread or even a quarter of that. What had been my most cause for anger is how you had painted her into this demon. The demon that killed people near her. My mother would often smiled and claimed it didn't matter to her but with such a soft heart do you really believe she wasn't affected?"

Sarah was at lost of words. She wanted to live but how?! She had killed Lucy right in front of Ian, a demon who now was coming after her life. 

Then she heard Ian's voice that startled her heart as if she had just heard a thunder struck the ground beside her, "Those kind of thing matter less compared to last week where you thought me of a new pain. A pain more terrible than being stabbed or to die. Which why I had brought you a gift, Sarah to remind you of the pain you made me suffer through."

Sarah's eyes shook as she felt a predicament striking her. She followed Ian's movement in a slow motion, watching him pulling out his right hand he had folded back the entire time and her eyes were met with the bloody sight of her son's head, severed and his eyes showing terror before his last breath.

Sarah's scream echoed throughout the corridor, tears covered her eyes in sorrow of losing her son but Ian didn't feel the least sympathetic to the woman. She deserve what was coming for her as she had done the same thing to his mother. But his mother had suffered worse. She had to be in the torturing flames, feeling the pain of being burned, feeling how her lungs filled with smoke before dying. Ian thought that he had killed Stultus in a rather kind method, seeing how he only suffered one attack before his death.

Holding to her son's head, Sarah's eyes flared at Ian, "You demon! For your entire life you will never found happiness!"

Ian looked down at the woman as he pulled the cross from the statue's hand, walking toward Sarah who tried to run away but he had pulled the woman by her hair and dragged her across the floor. Sarah clawed her way to escape from him but Ian had put her toward the wall, pinning her down before using the sharp edge of the cross to stab the woman's stomach. The stab was deep but not deep enough to immediately kill her.

"I do not care about the curse you gave me. I will give you plenty of time, Sarah to enjoy that pain in your abdomen and smoke filling your lungs as well as how it feels to have your skin burned by fire. You will enjoy what you put to my mother through. Now with your last few seconds, reflect on your sins. See for yourself that after what you have done, killing your own angel and creating a demon, and see if now you are happy for who may knows I might be kind enough to look the other way when we met again in Hell. But that possibility is very very utterly low."

Ian offered the woman one smile before leaving away.

"No! No!" Sarah was scared she had to feel this pain before dying, she would better be off dead rather than to suffer the pain of losing her last breaths, "Kill me! Just kill me! Kill me!" Ian turn a deaf ear toward the screaming and move on toward the staircase where he could smell his father had run to.

On his way, Ian hummed a low song, his heart and anger slowly satiated with the look of terror Sarah and Stultus had shown him but it wasn't over yet as there was still his father. As he walked across the floor, sparks appeared on the edge of the tables, the chairs before it caught everything on its surrounding, turning the mansion that was once luxurious into a food for the hungry fire.

Reaching the top of the staircase which lead to the tower, Ian pushed the door with his feet, seeing Ivan on the corner of the railing, torn between the choice of trying to jump down to safe himself from the demon but had no courage to do so.

"I-I regretted giving birth to you!" Ivan hurled insults on Ian but he didn't mind the insult as it sounded pathetic, similar to a rat's cry as they finally realized they had been trapped.

"My mother was the one who gave birth to me and she never regretted it. You know what you should regret, Ivan?" Ian didn't see the older man in front of him as anyone close to the existence of a father. He was simply a scum in front of him, one that had to be discarded for the betterment of the world. 

"You should regret ever casting aside your wife, causing you to make a demon. I'm not a demon because I am one but because of you people who had killed my mother," Ian continued to step forward. "I was wondering what I should do to you—"

Ian had not completed his words when Ivan attempted to jump down from the railing of the tower and he watched the older man with a smile. "Are you certain you can jump down and still preserve your life, Ivan?"

"Anything is better than dying on your hands, demon!" Ivan screamed as his eyes torn between looking at Ian and the ground that was far beneath him.

"Oh really?" Ian hummed and he smiled as he saw Ivan's face turning pallid when he noticed how the ground was engulfed with fire. Ian had took one step forward, causing him to panic and slipped fortunately he had been quick enough to hold the railing of the tower.

Languidly, Ian take steps toward his father's side. Seeing the man, he looked down with a smile that twisted higher as Ivan fall into horrific dilemma, "Let me tell you a secret, father. Falling from here doesn't actually kill you but it would be enough to make the bones on your legs to break. But look at that, fire! Will you be able to withstand the pain of being burned to death? Because I for sure knew it's far worse than dying from falling."

"What is it that you want?! Do you want to become my heir? If you want to become the Duke.."

"No, no, I don't want to become the Duke or anything. Ivan. You know don't have a power in you. I can make myself a Duke or even a Lord. Do you really have it in hands that can make me interested?"

Ivan fell quiet as he wrecked his mind, trying to find an offer he could tender but before he could, Ian sighed, "You don't. Thought so," and using his index finger, Ian begin to rip his father's hold on the railing, then watching the man fall from the tower.

As Ian had expected, Lord Ivan didn't immediately die, he screamed in pain when he saw the fire rushing to devour him alive as Ian smiled and laughed in ecstatic. He looked up to the sky which was blue and peaceful, reminding him of his mother, "I killed them, mother. You won't be happy but I have done what I wished to do… I'm happy, very happy that I could rip my heart out to see you my joy and yet… I still miss you. It's painful."