Crystal and the Damned - Possession (17 page)

Crystal rematerialized in the street. She wanted to vomit. She had stood up to Glory but in reality she hadn’t really accomplished much ; she had never felt as exceptional, nor as loved as she had made herself out to be. She did not believe that Dimitri would support her to the end, and she did not believe that Falada loved her more than his fashion doll. She was convinced, with horrible certainty, that she was more alone than ever and that her situation was only going to get worse.

She walked to the Prince’s private mansion. Above all, she had to get her mother to a safe place. She would be the first to suffer the repercussions of her daughter’s deeds, now that the All Powerful could no longer act.
I have to keep a cool head. Dimitri is going to help me – yes, but if it was nothing but the sex, what then, big girl ? How can you still believe that this monster will really support you when even your best friends reject you and manipulate you ?
she thought, knocking on the door of the residence.

As usual, the butler with the burned face opened the door. Still deep in thought, Crystal asked mechanically :

“Hello, can I come in ?”

“The Prince isn’t here. He had to leave to take care of some business, Miss.” The servant turned her away, nodding his head strangely.

“How many times are you going to pull this on me ? And besides,
hello
, I live here now,” the young woman yelled, irritated.

The butler did not budge an inch.

“I know, Miss. But the Master is not here. Go away.”

“You’re crazy, Frankenstein,” Crystal said, stamping her feet. “I swear, your brain is even more damaged than the rest of you. Get out of my way. Move !”

“Henry, Miss,” the servant corrected her gloomily. “My name is Henry. I can’t prevent you from entering this residence ; the Prince has forbidden it, but... leave. Go far away from here. I wish I could be clearer but the magic the Master exercises over me will not allow me to be.”

“So much the better ! That keeps you from offending his girlfriends,” she groused, shamelessly shoving him aside.
Seriously, even this charred cretin detested her. That really took the cake !

Crystal left Henry behind and climbed the stairs with all the elegance of a charging elephant.
On second thought, before saving my mother, I’ll order Dimi to throw out this horror film butler. I’ll tell him that....

Reaching the final landing, she stopped short. Her body, her thoughts. Something was subtly different in the atmosphere of the mansion. There was a
funny smell. Disturbed, her hand on the banister, she tested the air like a dog on the lookout. She had learned to recognize this odor. It had reeked in her nostrils since she had been Damned ; she had never been able to make it disappear. It was the smell of death.

Crystal blinked her eyes. The residence no longer had the muffled, heavy silence that she was accustomed to. It felt empty. The lurking presences in the corners, in the other rooms of the mansion were absent.
There’s nothing here anymore.
The young woman concentrated on increasing her perceptive abilities. Nothingness all around her. Downstairs, in the entry, she could feel the butler. Her senses rippled, crossing through the space. In the bedroom, in the Prince’s private apartments, she felt something, someone.

Step by step, step after step, the sound of her shoes absorbed by the thickness of the soft carpet, she advanced down the hall. Outside, the night extended its black wings and inside, in spite of the flickering light from the lamps, the world seemed dark. Crystal had too much experience with danger not to be wary, and yet the thing in the room drew her.
Don’t look under the bed.
But she closed her hand over the doorknob and opened it. The noise that she made banging it against the wall made her jump. Instinctively she turned her head.
The monster was there.
But no, it was just the deserted hall ; her imagination was playing tricks on her. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of movement in the room.
Her senses on alert, she did an about-face. Fighting off the beating of her heart, she turned toward the room.
Empty as well, but she could feel the threat, heavy, omnipresent. Knock, knock who’s hiding in the closet ?

Crystal furrowed her eyebrows upon discovering what had attracted her attention. On the bed, a black serpent twisted. Momentarily shutting out reality, Helen’s classes surfaced in her memory.
“The first law of Zanatos establishes that venoms and poisons have no effect on the Damned unless they have been put under a spell either by direct manipulation or by prior bewitchment of the animal.”
The memory did not reassure her. Not in the least. Everything that touched Dimitri closely or from afar smelled strongly of black magic. Crystal sensed the trap. The snake seemed harmless but he could bite her at any time, couldn’t he ? Cautiously she moved away. And suddenly she froze. An icy breath had invaded the atmosphere. Behind her, very close, too close, she felt a presence. The young woman could feel someone’s breath on her back. A hostile scent. A silhouette formed on the floor. The lights in the room flickered ; a flash streaked across the sky beyond the windows.
Behind me. It’s behind me.

“You don’t even have enough courage to find out ?” a woman’s voice hissed.

Crystal turned around, her eyes wide with surprise. It was the voice of her stepmother. It was the voice she had heard in Dimitri’s mirror ; the one she couldn’t identify.

In front of her, implacable and tall in her long green silk dress, the Empress stared at her, her dark gaze penetrating.

“You ! You, my father’s wife, you’re the real mole, aren’t you ? You’ve been working for Dimitri from the beginning. You out-maneuvered us all.”

Her stepmother snorted a horrible laugh.

“So, you’re less half-witted than you look. Beatrice was nothing but a pawn. I’m the one, the poisoner. I’m the one killing the All Powerful. I’m the one engineering your fall at the side of your dear Prince of the Underworld.”

“No. It’s impossible. You’re good, you are a saint. And you couldn’t have seen Dimitri, or have given the order to poor Beatrice ; you always stay on the island,” Crystal replied, trying to hang on to what she could to keep from losing her mind.

The Empress pointed to the broken mirror that stood, now useless, in the Prince’s living room.

“I see everything and I direct everything through my mirror.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most powerful queen of all ?
” she mimicked in a demented parody. “I’m not a saint, little girl. I agreed to marry your father to get my claws into his power. I immediately understood that the Dark Clan and all their stupidities would never crush your bloodline. I needed to gnaw away at it from the inside. I secretly murdered your dear father’s first wife and thanks to our marriage,
I climbed to the summit of the cult. Believe me, it cost me more than just blood and a few murders. But my final objective will soon be achieved. The All Powerful just fell into a coma and you will be dead in a few minutes. Dimitri will finally be able to seize power.”

With a mixture of repugnance and astonishment, Crystal shrugged her shoulders.

“Bravo, you’re super gifted... and really nice, apparently. I find this unbelievable, really : you others, the members of the Order of Hell, the famous supporters of the Prince of Darkness, you all seem to believe that Dimitri is going to send you flowers for having helped him. But there’s just one little thing that you don’t get : he couldn’t care less. The only person he’s interested in is himself. Give him power and you can be sure you’ll come to a bad end.”

“Idiot,” the All Powerful’s wife hissed. “I’m not a follower ; I’m not a slave. My reign will be inevitable if Dimitri reigns. Don’t you understand what I am to him ?”

Crystal narrowed her eyes.

“You’ve slept with him, is that it ? Well then, for your information, so have I. In fact, I think I might have stolen your place. And let me tell you....”

“I’m his mother.”

The Empress’s words echoed through the room, cutting the young woman off. The two women looked at each other.

“But,” Crystal faltered.

“I abandoned him very young. I hid him from all the Damned in order to be able to marry your father. It’s a long and tragic story that I’m not going to tell you this evening. It seems that my son has cleaned out his house and he has certainly left to clean up elsewhere, but he’ll return soon and I don’t want to break his heart. So I’ll kill you right now,” her stepmother announced coldly.

Crystal raised her chin. No time to think about it. She knew that she was going to have to fight for her life. She was going to have to leave here to escape this. And this time there would be no unexpected rescue. This time it was not one of her friends or a man who desired her. This time it was for real.

She struck out at the Empress’s throat. But the other woman’s raised hand stopped her as surely as steel.
Never such speed, never such strength....
Crystal’s lips quivered. Her stepmother answered her with a venomous smile. She slapped her, not even bothering to put her full strength into the blow, and yet bloody furrows appeared on the young woman’s cheek.
She scratched me ; this sick woman scratched me....

“My fingernails are poisoned,” whispered the Empress, making her fingers dance under Crystal’s nose. “You will soon be paralyzed. Have fun, we’ve only just started.”

The young woman shook her head in horror and took a step to the side. She fled at a run. Her stepmother let her go. A greenish glow shone in her eyes. Slowly, with perfect control, she followed her. The hem of her dress brushed the floor with a rustle, and her red fingernails danced in the void, a premonition of death.

Crystal launched herself through the house blindly. She hurtled down the stairs to the second landing. At the top, the Empress leaned over the rail and murmured a spell. An invisible wall kept her from going any farther down. She raised her head and was met by a jet of energy. Barely missing her, it made the floor explode. The detonation deafened Crystal. Three steps collapsed and the carpet ignited. Without waiting, she retraced her steps in the main hall of the second story. Her stepmother’s voice burst out like a peal of thunder.
Run, little mouse, your hour has come.
Her veins swollen, her neck damp with cold sweat, Crystal locked herself into a room at random. Reflexively she turned on the switch. And then screamed and screamed with all her might.

The bodies of children were piled up on the wall-to-wall carpet. Small lifeless bodies. Their bare skins covered in purplish-blue stains in an inhuman
obscenity. Their swollen tongues stuck out of their lips. She screamed and screamed and screamed....

Behind the door – 
tap, tap, tap
 – a creaking, a rubbing made the wood ring.
Tap, tap, tap.

“I’m here, little girl, I’m waiting for you. Open up. I’m going to give you a hug.”

Crystal was suffocating, tears in her eyes. And then : no, she was not going to end like this. No, she would not let little beings be tortured without fighting.

“They won’t be alone,” the Empress promised viciously behind the wood. “You’re going to join them.”

Crystal gritted her teeth. With all the violence she could muster, she threw the door open again, banging it against her stepmother, who tottered but resisted the shock.

“You killed them,” the young woman bellowed.

“No. It was Dimitri. Your lover. My son ! He was the one who did this. That’s who he is,” the Empress rejoiced, throwing Crystal against the opposite wall. “He cleaned house, I told you. He massacred as many people as possible,” her stepmother burst out laughing, catching her by the hair. “But as for the kids, he just did it to increase his personal power.”

Crystal thrashed wildly and managed to free herself. With a blow of her elbow, she broke three of the Empress’s ribs. The latter jumped back and put her hand on her broken flesh.

“Re-form,” she chanted.

There was a snap and her bones reset themselves. But Crystal was already on top of her. For a moment she seemed to be gaining the advantage in this lethal hand-to-hand combat. It took her stepmother a few moments to turn the situation around. She rose in the air, the spells she cast bouncing all over, illuminating the hall like fireworks. Submerged, her prey was no longer able to block her attacks. Suddenly the Empress seized her by the throat, strangling her. Crystal’s arms churned uselessly in the void. Her skin turned purple. She was smothering....

A shadow leaped at the Empress, forcing her to let go and freeing the young woman. Crystal looked above her and saw Henry – Frankenstein, the butler – standing between her and her stepmother.

“I won’t let you hurt her,” the servant with the burned face said. “I will not let you.”

Furious, frenzied, completely overtaken by madness, the Empress stood up.

“Silence, dog. You have no right, you are nothing. You are subject to me !”

“No, Highness, I belong to your son, not to you.”

The Empress showed her teeth.

“Break in half,” she hissed, pitiless.

A line similar to what a fencing epee would have made drew itself across the butler. For a second Crystal believed that the spell had not had any effect. And then Henry was cut in two. His legs separated from his torso. He fell. Crystal suppressed another scream. He didn’t hate her, he had wanted to save her, and he was dead for that. He died for her... or, well... nausea made her stomach clench : no liquid escaped the sliced body of the servant. He was alive. He was alive....
Oh, my God.

Her stepmother stood over him from her full height.

“Oh yes, he cannot die. I was the one who burned him alive, but Dimitri saved him. More or less. This poor Henry is neither dead nor alive. He will perish only if my son is destroyed. Do you still love black magic, little girl ?”

Crystal made a final attempt to fight, but the Empress’s poison was acting now ; a push from her stepmother was enough to pin her to the floor. The butler wanted to speak but the Empress cast a muting spell on him. He could only be a witness to the young woman’s demise. Satisfied with her cruelty, the All Powerful’s wife went back to her step-daughter.