Vengeance
It took them both a great deal of time, but finally Chalea had managed to take Aesus to the one place Maedus would never dare enter: her own room.
Placing him gently onto her mattress, she darted around, taking what little supplies she had and immediately tending to his injuries. After she finished her work, she sat, thinking about the events that had just conspired, and eventually just satisfying herself by letting her pent up tears fall onto the cold stone where she sat, convulsing with useless sobs. It was in that very moment that the cold voice that she had heard before slithered back into her ears.
"Go away!" Chalea ordered into the empty air. "I won't listen to you anymore!"
After being placed on her bed, a welcome comfort it was, and being treated for his wounds, Aesus felt a sort of weight lifting as he began assuring himself that the worst was over. He shut his eyes, easing slowly towards a fatigue driven sleep. He felt the peace of quiet for only a moment however, as Chalea's voice permeated the air with a callous, piercing voice.
"You are demons meant to infiltrate the souls of the innocent! But I have no soul, so be gone!! There is nothing you can gain from corrupting me," Chalea snapped, and the voice cackled loudly within her mind.
Chalea turned her eyes unwillingly to the corner of the room, and gasped with horror as she spied the dagger with which she had attempted to kill Maedus so long ago, only this time surrounded by sparks of black magic. Against her better judgement, she took it in her hands and looked at it. It felt warm in her hands, and alive, as though it were waiting to kill. But Chalea knew this to be only a replica.
In truth, it was not the same dagger she had used, but something much, much darker.
"I shall use it," she said, her voice suddenly filled with a strange malice "To end the suffering in this household."
Aesus opened his eyes, wanting to know despite the pain he was in. He watched in silence as Chalea seemed to talk to the room itself, and eventually stood and moved out of his view.
Chalea stood from her spot on the ground, and wandered blindly to Aesus' side, the dagger clutched tightly in her palm as she hovered over his heart.
Aesus remained motionless, filled with a new dread as she came back into view clutching a dagger tightly in her hand. He looked directly at her, and the daze she seemed to be in, before finally back to the knife, and for a moment, he wanted it. He looked into her eyes before smiling with a deep seeded compassion.
His eyes forgave her already, even if he didn't have it in him to say so.
Suddenly, to the horror of the voice in her head, Chalea lowered her arm to her side and instead bent down towards Aesus, placing her lips gently on his.
He felt it all melt away; the pain, the confusion, even the acceptance of his own death. He wanted that soft touch to last forever, and missed it's healing presence as soon as it was gone. But Chalea would not indulge him, not this time. She turned, her eyes blank but unwavering, and headed for the doorway.
"...Don't leave me..." He mumbled, far to quietly and far to late for his pleas to reach her determined ears. "...Please, don't go..."
But Chalea had already descended the twisting staircase, utterly deaf to any distraction as she wandered through the hallway, eventually returning to the door of the laboratory.
"I thought I had made it clear," she said quietly, putting her hand on the handle, "that I was going to end the suffering in this household... and what better way to do that than to eliminate its source?" Chalea in her furious delirium would have expected a response from the book's messenger, but to her twisted amusement, the blasted thing remained silent for once.
The large metal door to the laboratory announced the arrival with a piercing screech, as it was pushed open. Maedus had finished sealing the nitrogen filled cylinder, and was locking away both souls in his small desk-vault. He turned to the door with no level of haste or surprise, hiding away the key to the vault in his shirt, attached so eloquently to a chain necklace. He looked at Chalea by the door first, and then the knife.
"You've truly become a glutton for punishment, my dear. This hatred suits you so much better," he said with an icy gaze, as he turned to his table once again, lifting a pen and scribbling something in a worn ledger. "Do you truly believe this farce will carry any weight towards my compassions?"
"A glutton for punishment..." she mused in a voice that was not her own. "Funny you should say that, seeing as it is you who is about to receive the ultimate punishment... hell."
Chalea barely heard the warning through the overpowering ringing of her hatred, instead holding the dagger before her, its figure faced perpendicular to the floor, making its jeweled hilt appear in the shape of a dark cross. "Your compassions no longer matter to me, Maedus," she replied, "for they do not exist. You have made it your goal to eradicate the innocent and to pervade the world with the wickedness of ancient curses. On this day, you took the soul of an innocent, damning you to eternal hell. It was made my duty long ago to save you from this hell, but your persistence has made it so that I must change my goal, now becoming the one to deliver you to where you belong."
Maedus paused, then turned back around and began slowly walking towards Chalea without even a sliver of fear in his eyes.
"Let's have it then..." He extended his arms with a cheshire grin, as if to taunt her into his embrace. "...show me your rage, so I can take your fury."
Chalea's heart was pounding with pain and agony, but she ignored it. She had been unable to ignore her heart the last time she had said her prayers, but this time she was determined to do what she had to. Maedus was mocking her, and openly at that. He hadn't the slightest doubt in his mind that she would not be able to do it. But she could do it this time. Those words... she would remember them…
"Sacerdos ab Ordinario delegatus..." she began, shutting her eyes as an empty power swelled within her, one that would normally have eradicated the shadows that now sought to swallow her. "Rite confessus, aut saltem corde peccata sua detestans, peracto, si commode fieri possit, Sanctissimo Missæ sacrificio, divinoque auxilio piis precibus implorato, superpelliceo et stola violacea indutus..." She opened her eyes once more, taking a few cautious steps backwards towards the door. Her arm reached out behind her, her eyes never leaving Maedus' face, until her fingers brushed the wood of the door.
She continued to whisper the exorcist prayer as she began to push the door closed, slowly, drawing it out until the last possible second. Her eyes were blinded with tears, her mind numb with the screams of her own passion, imploring her not to do something she knew she would come to regret.
Her cynicism was driving her wild. There was nothing a silly little prayer and an old knife would do for her, and yet she still believed. The voices made her believe. She looked away once as the door slammed shut and everything was plunged into silence. They were alone now. Now was her time to rectify all that she had been unable to do. The chances that she would fail again were even greater than she knew, but that thought didn't cross her mind as she righted herself, her hair still made up immaculately and her face calm but for the tears.