Chapter 12.2: Like a Virgin

April 26th

Only twenty people were needed for the ritual, and the entire family was disappointed that they would not be able to participate.

Carlos and Gabriel learned of the decision from Momo, and they were horrified that the family was going to kill someone just to bring back another.

Carlos didn't show up, and he would have voted no if he did, nullifying the decision, so a month and six days later as planned, Asher was set to rise from the grave against the wishes of his father and his own.

Ella and Jakob went with Nymphadora and her sons to dig Asher's remains out of the ground, and Ella was shocked as the young boy's body had not deteriorated, but instead, it had stayed the same, the top of his scalp sewn back on, badly.

He was so tiny, in his little white coffin, with his blue knit cap and orange puffy coat. Jakob Hansen cried just as hard as the day Asher died, his guilt still eating him all these years later, and for a split second, Ella had an epiphany.

Why must she suffer for the sins of her forefathers?

"Ella, my Queen, you mustn't get lost in thought," Kato cautioned her.

Ella was brought back to reality, the reality that the choice was an illusion.

"I can smell your apprehension," Kato whispered. "Don't do it . I like you."

Ella nodded and said nothing because she was a hostage, and hostages didn't negotiate.

Nymphadora picked up her son's body, and Ella followed from behind, walked to the parking lot, got into the car, returned to the castle, went through all the motions, everything blurring together, and Ella blinked, now standing at the top floor of her castle, looking down into the garden, the two hours of moonlight left for them to do their sorcery.

She watched from above, from the wonderfully made windows crafted by Jakob in her personal library, and she knew that's all she ever was, an outsider, an observer, never allowed in, not one of them.

She wasn't family, nor a friend, and never would be.

Ella snorted as she saw the monsters tear their clothes off in her backyard and start a fire because it would call for rain, and she closed the drapes, tired of wasting her life on those who would not spend a second of their day thinking about her.

Ella the Erratic decided to call it an early day and retired to her chambers.

She was a heavy sleeper, so she did not hear the screams of her son.

Aksel Magnus, the only remaining member of the royal line of Norway, as most nobility were killed during the colonization of Earth, was dragged out of his room, kicking, and screaming.

It was Paris who dragged him from his room, more than happy to help and be a part of something, dragging him by his left leg, and the prince shouted for anyone to come, but most of the help was dead, or hiding, or had run away after the family had their parliamentary meeting.

"Why are you doing this," Aksel screamed.

"Because…. they told me to, " Paris scoffed. "Like, duh?"

Aksel's brown pupils became small, enraged that someone was treating him like he was stupid, dragging him out of his room in the middle of the night, and Aksel stopped fighting because he had seen their strength many times over.

"At least let me walk," Aksel pleaded.

"I dunno," Paris said, stretching out the last syllable. "Promise not to run?"

"Promise."

"Pinky promise?"

"I promise, let me walk to my own death with dignity at least!"

Paris pursed his lips and scratched his bare ass in the magnificent and beautifully decorated hallway, filled with history, his snake eyes glaring at the prince, thinking if his blood tasted different due to the centuries of royal inbreeding.

Aksel stood up, and pulled up his boxers, black with red little flames on the bottom, as they started to slip on a skinny frame, and he glared back, not afraid of the monsters, thinking that they were impetuous guests playing a prank on him.

"Don't touch me," Aksel snarled.

"It's the closest you've gotten to touching anyone, virgin, " Paris replied.

Aksel turned three shades of red and asked him how he knew.

"I can smell the bitch on you, " Paris giggled. "So stop being one and walk."

Aksel followed, walking ahead, being pushed into whatever direction he told him to, thankful that he could no longer see Paris's blonde blush. The halls echoed with sounds of their bare feet smacking, the smell of bleach pungent, after many rounds of cleaning.

As they walked down the halls of Akershus Castle, blood could be seen seeping through the cracks underneath the doors from rooms that hadn't been cleaned yet.

"What do you want with me," Aksel asked.

"Your soul," Paris replied.

" What?"

Aksel started to slow down, and Paris smacked his leg, hitting him every time he slowed down.

"You won't get to walk if you don't keep up," Paris scoffed. "Come on already!"

Aksel burst into a full-blown sprint, and Paris easily caught him by the hand, without breaking a sweat. Paris smiled, and flicked Aksel's right pinky, causing it to crack.

He screamed and crumpled to the ground, his bone broken, and Paris tut-tutted his tongue.

"You pinky promised. Like, come on? Don't play me."

Aksel, the last of his line, cried as a naked vampire dragged him into his own backyard to sacrifice him, the others talking as if it were some sort of party. They treated it as it was, music, bonfire blazing high, dancing, and the occasional burst of laughter.

They would stare, and grin, and then laugh, literally having an inside joke no one else could hear.

"You're all insane," Aksel screamed. "All of you!"

"Uh, like, I don't give a fuck what you think, so, uh shut up, " Paris moaned. "No one asked for your opinion."

Paris started to drag him purposefully over random rocks in the garden, and Aksel grunted and pleaded, but no one helped, the rude visitors now his kidnappers. With one final bit of effort, Paris stopped at a circle of salt drawn on the grass, picked up Aksel, and chucked him inside.

Aksel scrambled up, and he ran in the opposite direction, smacking into thin air. He could not leave, because the first challenger had entered the arena, and the fight for his life would begin.

"Help me leave," Aksel pleaded.

"You gotta take off your boxers," Paris said.

Aksel did so without hesitation, willing to do anything to break free.

"What next," Aksel asked.

"You're ready to be sacrificed, see ya in hell man."

Paris walked off, hips swaying, and Aksel wondered if this was some sort of cruel joke, played by a cruel god. Did they want him because of his royal blood? Was it a horrible prank? Were they going to eat him? If so, why didn't they do so years before?

Soft little raindrops started plinking down onto the ground, a light drizzle, and everyone stopped what they were doing, the ritual to begin.

A woman with no name, at least, a woman who liked to pretend she had no name because it added to the mystique when her name was Michelle, was proceeding over it all, trusted by her mother, no greater honor to have in her entire afterlife.

Her siblings had painted her body in white chalk, lining the sources of energy in her body. She was naked as the day she was born, her curly rat's nest of hair everywhere, the nameless witch Michelle to perform a spell that rarely occurred, the conditions needing to line up perfectly.

She had found the book, gathered the materials, chosen the people necessary, and she would be rewarded for her hard work, but if she failed, she would prefer death to banishment.

The witch opened her grimoire and started to speak, and one by one, everyone knew what to do, as they had practiced before. Objects were placed around the circle, as the rain came down harder, and Aksel shivered in the cold, under the full moon, hoping that someone would notice he was gone, anyone, someone, but no one did, so his fate was sealed.

A woman he recognized from a portrait in his father's studio, now naked, entered the circle, her long brown hair sticking to her toned body, and she screamed, yelling at the sky, shaking the bushes and trees, daffodils, and hedges.

Nymphadora would not die that night.

The air spoke, the monsters spoke, the sky shifted, and Aksel felt everything tilt, something wrong, everything perverted. From the center of the circle was the corpse of a small child, in a puffy orange coat, a small blue hat, and for a split second, Aksel forgot where he was, and that he should have known better, worrying about someone who was long gone instead of the one living person there.

The witch let out a blood-curdling scream, and the bonfire turned black and blue, whipping into a frenzy, dancing along with the monsters, singing along with them.

Incipe, the witch screamed.

The circle made of salt glowed dark blue, and short flames sprouted up from it. They twisted and turned, and wrapped around the ankles of and wrists of Nymphadora and Aksel, shackling their souls to each other, to the junction between the living and the dead.

Aksel could understand why they would kill him, but the woman they all revered? It made no sense. They seemed to revel in it, jerking and dancing in the dark, stomping the ground, screaming, until they all went quiet, at once, the only sound again, the rain.

"In death, we are all equal," the nameless witch Michelle proclaimed. "This battle will be the strength of your will to live. "

"Please don't do this," Aksel shouted.

"This is the only way," Nymphadora screamed. "I will not choose you over my children!"

The chanting began again, and Aksel sobbed his will to live strong, but his spirit weaker.

Pro vestri somnia.

The dancing, the stomping began again, and Aksel swore the world was spinning faster the more they stomped their feet and chanted, low and deep.

Nymphadora walked towards the center, and Aksel felt his own chains start to drag as well, towards the edge of the circle, the wall of ghastly blue flames surrounding them.

The soil was soft underneath his feet as he pulled against the fiery chains, and Nymphadora pulled as well, both aiming for the center, the farthest point from the wall. Aksel didn't know what the center had to do with anything, but the boy was in the center, and it led to him, and it meant he got to live, so it must mean something good.

Aksel slipped, his mind wandering, never a fighter, not even a lover, and Nymphadora sprinted to the center, pulling Aksel back into the blue flames. He flew out, and flew in again, through the other side of the circle, a shadow of his former self, translucent and blue, and Nymphadora was still running, past her son, the chants louder and louder.

Ius pro tuo!

Nymphadora grabbed onto the very essence of Aksel by the chains, his pure and untainted soul, and dragged him, the heaviest thing she had ever carried in her years upon the earth, and Aksel's heart raced, the only beating heart there.

Without the weight of a physical form, Aksel was much faster, and he ran right out, towards the wall of fire, and reappeared on his original side of the circle, his flesh returned, Nymphadora now at her side of the circle, humiliated, covered in mud, dragged back to her side of the line.

"Let me go," Aksel shouted.

"If neither wins before the sun rises, we shall both die," Nymphadora told him. "Forfeit and give your death meaning."

"I am the last of an empire," Aksel shouted. "I cannot!"

"So is my son."

Aksel ran towards the center, and Nymphadora slid, right out, her soul appearing on the other side. She was heavier now for Aksel as well, so he tried to move her using the flaming blue chains, his will to live stronger than hers.

It worked.

Nymphadora cried as she was dragged closer to the center, and the ritual was almost complete. The black-blue fire burned brighter, the rain fell faster, and heavier, and turned darker. The monsters all giggled, and they stood, opening their mouths wide, waving their hands in the air.

Aksel looked up, and it was raining blood.

"Jesus Christ."

He let go of the chains and Nymphadora had the home advantage.

She pushed up her body to her feet, took a running start, leaped as far as possible, soared through the other side of the flames, and Aksel flew, spinning in the air, screaming, his soul tearing out of his body as he came out of the other side of the circle of fire.

Victoria!

For a split second, when Aksel was pulled to the other side, his physical form gone again, the rain returned to its beautiful hue, but the closer he was dragged, the darker it became, and Aksel shuddered, because he knew, he knew that it was his own blood.

Victoria!

The last final inch was the hardest, Aksel's will to live the strongest, as he could see the dead vacant eyes of a child in front of him, his own blood pouring down from the sky, the purple thunder crackling, the monsters cackling, and he did not want to die, he could not die, because that was not how these sort of things worked, he was a prince, blessed by God, this was not how these things worked.

Pro vita tua!

Nymphadora told herself that the pain was nothing.

That childbirth was worse.

She gripped the hell flame chains, planted her feet as firmly as she could in the ground, and pulled, blood pouring out of her own eyes in pain, mixing in with Axel's, and she sobbed because she did not want to live any longer, she did not know why she kept going, plodding on through eternium, for she did not know what else to do.

She looked at her sons, Dante and Kato.

She saw the sun rising in the distance.

She pulled.