To His Hell and Back
Chapter 57: Too See Through

Chapter 57: Too See Through

"Still acting tough?" Arabella scoffed as she turned her eyes away from him. Cassius’s red eyes seemed to tremble when he heard her next word: "Forget it. Let’s kill him now."

"No. Not yet. He’s different from all the vampires we have killed," the cloaked woman answered, her nails clawed over the flesh, picking the blood to her fingertips and smiling as she inspected it. "This is the power of the pureblood vampires. Despite being staked and dying, he can remain awake for a while. Not too long, but this is a good experiment for us. We should preserve his body and inject him with the highest dose of potion we have. Perhaps we could turn him into the most obedient and powerful remnant."

"Remnant." Cassius swiftly turns his head to look at the creature that he had been burnt to death by. "So the potion could turn not only vampires but humans."

"A curious one, aren’t you, vampire?" the cloaked woman laughed on his face. "Since you’re about to become one of our biggest achievements, I don’t mind letting you in on a secret."

Cassius didn’t answer, heaving for breaths as if moving a muscle on his face was a great task that was too difficult for him. His mouth was bleeding, but his chest, which had a cavity, was even worse, oozing blood that streamed downstream nonstop. If someone had pulled the stake, he would have died instantly, and knowing this, the women didn’t pull them, wanting him to be alive, perhaps to suffer for a while longer.

"You vampires have always basked in your illusion of grandeur!" The cloaked woman’s voice dripped with scorn as she lifted her hand toward the heavens, fingers curling as if grasping something unseen. "So mighty, so untouchable, as if the very concept of weakness is beneath you. Well, I hate to shatter your delusions, darling, but immortality is nothing more than a fairytale you’ve told yourselves. You can bleed. You can break. And like any creature that believes itself invincible..." She stepped forward, her shadow stretching long beneath the moonlight.

"You can fall."

She tilted her head, eyes gleaming with cruel delight. "Just as you stole this kingdom from us, we will take it back. And when we do, we won’t simply seize your throne, we will crown ourselves in the ruins of your arrogance." A smirk curled her lips as she leaned in, voice a whisper of thunder. "History does not favor the proud. It favors the cunning."

"Benevolent. Are you saying that you want to help humans take back what’s theirs?" Cassius lowered his face, a smile appearing on his scarlet lips, "Yet you have just killed humans and turned them into these mindless creatures you call remnant. How is this kindness, mind you, enlighten me?"

"Who says that our kindness is for humans?" Beneath the black cloak, the oddly too-bright blue eyes gleamed. "The kingdom will be ours. Not humans, not you vampires, but ours. Our King will soon help us achieve this dream, and you will be nothing more than our beautiful tame creatures to control. Creatures who would attack for us and die for us."

"King?" Cassius questioned, his crimson eyes dimming as his shoulders dropped.

"Our King-"

"Don’t answer him no more," Arabella stopped the cloaked woman with her green eyes narrowing, "Don’t be swayed by his words. He is quite good when it comes to playing cat and mouse to gain information."

"You know me well," sang Cassius with a smile. He studied her, and his eyes seemed colored with a flash of regret and pang of pain, "You don’t seem as happy as to see me dead."

"Me? I’m overjoyed," Arabella sang her laughter. "Wasn’t it obvious that I have been waiting for this day?" She then pulled an odd, dusty brown book with a velvet red cover into her hands. "I wish I could kill you with more torture, but you’re far too dangerous."

Cassius didn’t respond; instead, he gritted his teeth, his head bowed low, fixating on the bloodied ground beneath him.

The cloaked woman sneered, her voice dripping with disdain. "Why? Did you really think I’d shed a tear watching you die? Vampires can be so foolish when it comes to loving a human."

Cassius’s breaths tremble as he mutters, "Come back here. I can forget this ever happened."

The cloaked woman laughed, a cold, mocking sound that echoed in the night. "Ah, so you must have been truly smitten with the human. Look at you now, begging for mercy like a lost puppy."

Suddenly, Arabella interrupted, her brow furrowing in concentration. "Something feels off," she said, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade.

The cloaked woman narrowed her eyes, momentarily distracted. "What do you mean?"

Arabella lifted the ancient book, its worn cover glinting ominously in the moonlight. Her voice was steady, but there was a sharp edge of urgency beneath it. "This book... It should be able to tell us whether the vampire in front of us can be turned into a Remnant using the ancient spell."

The cloaked woman’s impatience flared as she glanced at Cassius, who remained unnervingly still, his head still bowed, lips curving into the faintest of smiles. "And?" she snapped.

Arabella’s gaze flickered toward Cassius’s chest before she declared, "We need his heart."

The cloaked woman exhaled in exasperation. "Even if we’ve crushed it, it should still be viable. you should know about this, so what’s the fretting?- Move!" With a swift motion, she snatched the book from Arabella’s hands, her eyes scanning the worn, enchanted pages.

But something was wrong.

The spell, one she had relied on countless times, remained lifeless. The ink, usually quick to glow with an eerie blue light upon activation, remained dull and unmoving. Her brow furrowed in confusion. This wasn’t possible. Even with a shattered heart, or even if they pull it from Cassius’s heart, the spell should still respond.

She knew this better than anyone, she had tested it before, on countless failed experiments. Some had died in agony, and some had crumbled into dust, but the spell had always been activated. Always.

Her breath hitched. "No... This should work. There’s no creature, no vampire, without a heart."

Her words trailed off into stunned silence, and her face drained of color as the realization settled over her like a suffocating weight.

Cassius finally lifted his head, his crimson eyes gleaming with amusement as he took in their horrified expressions. He tilted his head, his grin widening into something both wicked and knowing.

"What makes you so surprised?" he asked, his voice silk smooth, laced with mocking curiosity. "You look as if you’ve seen a ghost."

The cloaked woman swallowed hard, her grip on the book tightening.

Because she had seen monsters, had turned men into abominations, had done the unspeakable.

But never, never had she encountered something like this.

"There’s no way a creature cannot survive without a heart— no, no, that’s impossible! Nothing walks this earth without one!" The cloaked woman’s voice wavered as she flipped feverishly through the book, her fingers tightening around the edges as if willing the pages to tell her something different. Because surely, the book was wrong. That was far more plausible than the nightmare unraveling before her eyes.

Her breath hitched as she looked up again. "How— HOW?! NO!" Her hand shot forward, trembling with fury and disbelief as she glared at Cassius, his grin only deepening. "Speak! Tell me— what are you hiding?! What are you?"

But Cassius remained silent, his crimson gaze sweeping over their stunned faces before he slowly pursed his lips, as if suppressing a laugh.

"Maybe I’ll let you know after you stop pretending to be my birdie?" Cassius sighed, and at this, Arabella looked at him in shock, as if her jaw was going to fall slack on the ground from the suddenness.

"Where is she?" He demanded, his crimson eyes narrowing sternly this time. "My birdie."

"You knew?" Arabella questioned.

"Do you really think this pathetic act is anywhere close to believable?"

At this, Arabella, who was standing rigid, swallowed hard. The green eyed girl in front of him looked frayed at the edges, her mind whirling through possibilities. And then, just as Cassius refused to answer, an idea, a greedy, desperate idea, formed in her mind.

"The human—" Arabella’s voice caught, her throat tightening as she saw the fear flicker across the cloaked woman’s face. The realization hit like ice water. They had the wrong target.

Arabella took a slow, steadying breath before pressing forward. "Do you want her to die of hunger? If you tell me what you are, I’ll release her."

"What are you doing?" The cloaked woman snapped, clicking her tongue in irritation.

"It’s better than stumbling in the dark! We need to know what we’re dealing with."

The cloaked woman scoffed, her patience fraying. "We don’t need to know anything. We just need to kill him. Heart or no heart, as long as we take his head, he dies. Dead for good." With a flick of her wrist, a thin, gleaming sword materialized in her grip. The blade scraped against the ground as she let its weight settle in her hands.

Arabella stiffened. "Kill him? Just like that?" She shook her head, her voice urgent. "You don’t see it! He’s a fine specimen. Maybe he’s the key—"

The cloaked woman let out a sharp, biting laugh, the sound laced with something almost deranged. "And what? The woman whose skin you’re wearing is dead." Her eyes gleamed with cold amusement as she tilted her head. "How exactly do you plan to release her? He can see through your disguise now. Don’t let his words deceive you."

A sudden chill slithered through the air, thick and suffocating.

Cassius, who had been so effortlessly smug while grinning, watching, indulging in their little game— suddenly stilled.

His smile faded.

His brow twitched, the only sign that her words had struck something dark in him.

Slowly, he lifted his head, and the crimson of his eyes darkened, the flickering torchlight swallowed by an abyss of ink black shadows swirling within them.

His voice was quieter than before, but it carried the weight of something terrible.

"What did you just say?"

"Dead?"

And to topple the surprise of the two women, Cassius stood up from the spot, his chest that was bleeding now gaped into a wide hole as he pulled out the wooden stake from his upper half. Not even the slightest pain seemed to transfer on his face, replaced by nothing but a cold, lethal intent.

"Who is dead?"