Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Blood and Steel

Valerie’s fangs sunk into the dying flesh of Cyril’s neck.

Cyril’s remaining eye widened and his maw of sharp bony teeth parted to gasp for a breath that he would never taste. He might’ve screamed had he had the strength, but his fight with the twins had made him too weak for even that. Only a soft croak managed to escape his throat, drowned out by the sound of Valerie’s hungry slurps as she drained him of his tainted blood.

Valen felt his heart sink. His sense of smell was nowhere near as good as Louise’s, except when it came to blood. In all the times he’d faced members of the Primordial Church, none of them, not even the flesh scorpion or the giant pig that took a motorcycle to the face, had blood that smelled as strongly of magic as Cyril. It was the Unborn God’s blood that flowed inside him, or something very close to it. 

He dreaded to think what would happen to Valerie after she drank it, but right now they had more immediate problems at hand.

Keiko shook off her confusion and stepped slowly towards Valerie. She drew a knife from the back of her belt, holding the slightly curved black blade in a reverse grip.

“Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to back away from that…” Keiko didn’t seem to know what the hell to call the mutilated, tentacle-covered body of what she must not have realised used to be her partner. “...tentacle…thing and put your hands behind your head. Slowly.”

Valerie’s fangs relinquished their grip on Cyril’s dead throat with a squelch. Her shoulders slumped and she looked up at the ceiling with a relieved sigh, seemingly unbothered by Keiko’s command.

The sinuous tentacles strewn about the floor began to shrivel up like dried vines under a cruel sun until they were little more than strips of wrinkled flesh that dissolved into blood. The rest of Cyril’s body followed suit. Flesh melted off bone into viscous blood, and those bones crumbled away into fine powder that became lost in the puddles of dark crimson under it.

Valerie rose to her feet with her arms hanging casually at her sides without a hint of fear of Keiko’s authority. She turned around with an unamused, almost bored-looking frown on her pursed lips.

A loud splash resonated throughout the hall as her steel toe boot launched her off the bloodsoaked floor at breakneck speed.

Valen blinked, and when he opened his eyes again Valerie was in front of Keiko, a clawed hand shooting straight towards her head.

“No!” Valen swiped his sister’s arm, causing it to only graze Keiko’s cheek before grabbing it and using it as a lever to toss her over his shoulder.

“Shit!” Keiko stepped back in surprise. “That was way too close.”

Valerie hit the ground back first and backrolled away from Valen and Keiko. She stopped herself in a crouching position, her angry black-red eyes boring into her twin.

“The hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked with her fangs in a snarl.

“What am I doing?!” Valen shouted in anger at his twin. “The hell are you trying to do?!”

“Getting rid of a witness,” she said matter-of-factly. “Now step aside so we can get out of here.”

Keiko clenched the knife in her right hand tight.

“Like hell you will!” She spun the knife in her hand and brought it up in a defensive position. “You’re under arrest for breaking and entering.”

For some reason, memories of when Enid and Louise first met flashed in Valen’s mind.

“Uuuh.” He put both hands up in a placating gesture between the two women. “I’d really rather both of you not-”

“Bring it on, bitch!” Valerie sprinted towards Keiko with a knife of crystalised blood in her hand. 

Keiko responded in kind, pushing past Valen to meet his twin in combat.

Crystallised blood clashed against carbon steel as the bat and fox traded blows. The clangs of their knives resonated through the hallway, Valerie’s wild slashes getting blocked or dodged by Keiko who’d counterattack each strike with a precise jab that either tore at the cape muddling Valerie’s shape or left shallow scratches that would heal in a matter of seconds.

Valen watched the spectacle unfold, partially in awe but mostly in horror at the turn of events.

The Valerie he’d grown up with was a kind girl. She never hesitated to defend herself, as most people in the Nocturnal District had to, but she wasn’t the kind of straight up murder someone just for being a witness like she tried to do with Keiko.

Whatever happened to her in their fourteen years apart, she was clearly no longer the kind girl he once knew.

Valerie tried slashing at Keiko’s throat, who blocked it with the flat of her own knife.

In the brief moment when their knives were locked, Keiko made a lightning fast flick of the wrist that caused her blade to slash at Valerie’s knife hand.

“Ack!”

Valerie’s crystal knife clinked against the ground before dissolving back into blood, followed by a stream of blood from Valerie’s hand that ended with her severed pinky and ring finger rolling on the floor.

Keiko spun her knife into a forward grip and thrusted it straight at Valerie’s head.

“Valerie!” Valen darted into the active duel, tackling Valerie to the ground just in time for her head to miss the point of Keiko’s knife by the literal skin of her nose.

As much as she might’ve changed in their time apart, she was still and will always be his beloved sister. He loved her then, and he wasn’t going to stop loving her now. No matter who she became.

The twins crashed onto the blood covered floor together. The moment Valerie’s back hit the floor, she pushed Valen to the side off her and kicked Keiko in the shin.

Keiko stumbled to regain balance, then fell when Valerie swept her other leg from under her. She landed with a loud thud on the floor, her fall cushioned by the plumpness of her own rear.

Valerie leapt to her feet. The blood spewing from the stumps of her two missing fingers solidified into another blood crystal knife that she held in a reverse grip.

She lunged at the fallen Keiko with the knife raised high for a lethal stab but was pulled away mid-lunge when Valen yanked her back by the cape.

“Valerie, stop this!” Valen swung her to the side and pushed her to the wall, holding her tight by the shoulders. “You don’t have to fight anymore!”

“I’m trying to get you out of here!” Valerie snapped.

“I was going to get released anyways!” Valen shouted back.

“Do you really believe that?!” Valerie sounded genuinely offended. “Did you really, actually believe these pigs?!”

Keiko scrambled to her feet.

“He’s right,” she said, bringing her knife back up. “Lady, I don’t know who the hell you are or what you’re doing here but the only one in trouble right now is you.”

“Shut up!” Valerie’s body disintegrated into a puff of red mist that whooshed out of Valen’s grip.

Her body reformed in front of Keiko, who took an involuntary step back in surprise. Keiko raised her knife to defend her head and neck but was blindsided when Valerie ducked under her guard. Not even using a weapon this time, Valerie plunged her half-missing hand into Keiko’s body.

Two black claws tore through Keiko’s waistcoat and dress shirt to pierce her side. She grit her teeth in pain but managed to bring her knife down on Valerie before her hand could go too deep. The knife’s blade buried deep inside Valerie’s shoulder and Keiko followed it up with a front kick that pushed her to the ground with the knife still sticking out of her.

“Ah, shit.” Keiko staggered to the side and leaned her shoulder against the wall while pressing her hands over the hole in her side.

Valerie angrily pulled the knife from her shoulder and threw it at a nearby wall with enough force to lodge it into the concrete. She got to her feet, the three claws of her mutilated right hand raised high in the air. 

“I’m going to cut your bloody-”

“That’s enough!” Valen shot up from under Valerie, surprising her. 

He ducked his head under the armpit of her raised arm while his arm swung over her chest and wrapped around her neck in a triangle choke. While he didn’t want to hurt his sister not a day after their long awaited reunion, he couldn’t just stand by while she committed cold blooded murder.

Valen locked his arms and started squeezing. His arm squashed against the carotid artery in Valerie’s neck, cutting off the supply of oxygen to her brain. She gasped for air, but none would enter through her strangled throat. 

The chokehold wouldn’t be lethal. Valen planned to stop it the moment he heard her pass out. Still, it was no doubt an unpleasant experience. He’d been on the receiving end of it himself enough times to know that. He could only hope she’ll forgive him for inflicting it upon her once she calmed down.

Moments before she would’ve passed out, Valerie vanished from Valen’s hold, dissipated into a cloud of red mist that reformed into flesh and bone far away from him.

Valen instinctively put himself between her and the injured Keiko, not wanting to fight his twin but willing to do so if it meant avoiding more death.

Valerie bore into him with her black-red eyes while slow, ragged breaths filled her lungs back up. She rubbed her bruised throat, the mere sight of which filled him with guilt despite knowing it was necessary.

“So that’s your choice.” Valerie didn't even sound angry anymore. She sounded disappointed more than anything else. “Bloodraven was right. I never should have come here.”

“Valerie…” Valen wanted to say something more but couldn’t find the words. What can even be said anymore after all this?

Valerie sucked in a deep breath that she let out in a sad sigh.

“Goodbye, Valen,” she said. “I wish you a good life, but for your sake…I hope we never see each other again.”

Hearing her say that last sentence hurt Valen more than everything else he’d been through that night combined. His mind raced to find something to say. Something to keep her from disappearing from his life again.

“Valerie, I-”

But it was too late. Nothing he said could’ve stopped her now.

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Valerie’s body disintegrated into mist for the last time and billowed into the cell Valen had been staying in before things went to hell.

He followed after her in time to see the crimson mist blow through the window bars and out into the uncaring night.

“Uuugh.”

The sound of Keiko’s pained groans snapped Valen out of his sorrow. He shook his head and cursed himself for not attending to her the moment he could. This wasn’t about him or his grief. Right now, Keiko needed help.

Valen rushed back into the hallway and to Keiko’s side. She was holding the wound on her side with both hands, applying enough pressure to keep the bleeding to a minimum.

“Do you have a healing factor?” Valen asked.

“Yeah,” said Keiko. “It’s not quite as strong as a vampire's but I won’t need to go to a hospital. Just gotta keep the wound closed while my body heals it shut.”

“That’s good.” Valen let out a relieved sigh. “Still, you should get that looked at. I’ll go up to get help-”

“Stop right there!” 

The sound of a familiar and hostile voice made Valen freeze in his tracks.

He glanced at the direction of the voice to see the werewolf officer from before with a look that was equal parts confused and terrified on his face. His taser was pointed at Valen as he was crouched before Keiko in the bloodsoaked hallway, a shaky finger already on the trigger.

Valen slowly raised his hands in submission.

“I’m complying,” he said in his calmest tone. “Detective Keiko needs medical attention right now. Can you-”

The werewolf officer’s finger slipped and pulled back his taser’s trigger. 

Valen saw the two pointed probes of the taser move towards him in slow-motion, their electrified wire trailing behind them like smoke trails behind tiny aeroplanes.

For a split second he considered dodging them. The adrenaline still lingering in his system after the fight made everything feel awfully slow, so it would be easy enough to avoid them. 

But the officer was already jumpy as is. Any sudden movements, even ones done in completely harmless self-defence, might either set him off enough to resort to more lethal measures or retreat to get more backup. If the latter happened, then that was less time for Keiko to find proper medical attention.

Valen stayed stock still, allowing the tips of the taser probes to pierce through his waistcoat and dress shirt to touch his sore muscles. His mind braced for the inevitable shock which came a split second later.

For the second time in less than 24 hours, Valen felt fifty thousand volts of electricity be injected directly into his body. It was already pretty painful before when it had caught him off guard in the back. Having the electricity shoot into him through his chest inches away from his heart while completely aware that it was coming was agonising.

He fell on his side with every muscle in his body convulsing from the burst of electricity being pumped through it. His mind remained painfully conscious, but he pretended to be passing out so that the officer shocking him could feel less threatened and hopefully be less likely to shock him a second time.

“Stop it!” Keiko scrambled to her feet, wincing at the pain in her side.

“W-what?” Officer Carl Lotton stammered, his furry finger still pressed tight against the trigger. “But he-”

Keiko wrenched the taser out of his grip with one bloodied hand while the other hand struggled to hold her wound shut.

“He is not the threat here,” she told him. “Go up, get us an ambulance and put out an arrest warrant for a pale vampire female with short black hair, red eyes, and wearing a red cape.”

“Uuuh.” The werewolf officer just stood there with a stupid look on his face that was looking more punchable by the second.

Keiko rolled her eyes. Why did she even bother with someone like him?

“Just get a damn paramedic down before I bloody bleed out!”

“Y-yes, mam!”

Carl scurried up the stairs, the claws of his bare wolven feet causing nervous clatters with every step he took.

Keiko sighed. She leaned on the nearby wall and allowed herself to slide down near where Valen laid after his electrocution.

“Sorry about Carl,” she said, though he didn’t expect him to answer in his state.

The fact that someone with a malignant mix of cocky and incompetent as uniquely infuriating as Carl got past basic training was a testament to the police force’s desperation, or more likely, its laziness in finding people willing to police the Nocturnal District.

Not that she could complain. That same desperation and lax recruiting attitude made it possible for her to become a police officer in the Nocturnal District despite her immigrant status making most other jobs hard to come by. Being grossly overqualified for the job compared to her peers also helped her to rise to the rank of detective in a relatively short time.

Valen groaned on the ground beside her.

“It’s okay,” he said in a tired, croaky voice that sounded as far from okay as possible.

“Ah, you’re awake,” said Keiko. 

“Yes, I’ve been through worse.” Valen rose to his knees. He clasped his half missing right hand and glanced at where his two severed fingers had fallen. 

They’d already begun to turn to ash which quickly dissipated into the puddle of dark blood under it. The bloody stumps on his hand that they used to be attached to were already starting to grow new fingers, though doing so sapped the strength he’d gotten from drinking Louise’s blood.

Keiko chuckled despite the situation. “You’re one tough biscuit, you know that Valen?”

“I wouldn’t have survived this long if I wasn’t.” Valen shook off the dizziness in his head before pulling out the taser probes still stuck in his chest. “And you’re pretty tough yourself, detective.”

Keiko smiled. 

“I guess we have that in common, eh?” Her expression turned serious. “But now that I have you here, do you mind answering some questions?”

“Are you…are you trying to interrogate me with a hole in your side?” 

Valen couldn’t even be mad. That was some next level dedication to her job right there.

“Might as well while Carl is up there getting his head out of his arse.” Keiko squirmed in an attempt to make her back more comfortable against the hard wall. “You seem to have known the woman who broke in. You must’ve been fond of her enough to not want me to kill her, at the very least. What is your relationship with her?”

Valen slowly trudged to the wall opposite to Keiko on his knees and leaned back, letting out a long sigh as he did.

“She’s my sister,” he told Keiko. “My twin.”

“Twin?” Keiko paused as if in thought. “Okay, yeah, now that you say that I can see the resemblance. That explains a lot.”

“I haven’t seen her in fourteen years,” Valen continued. “She ran away from home when we were nine. She used to be a sweet girl. I don’t know what could’ve happened to make her like this.”

“People change,” said Keiko. “I’m assuming that she tried to break you out? How’d she even get in?”

“She used something called bloodcraft. Turned herself into mist and came through the window bars. It’s what let her make those blood knives she fought you with too.”

“Bloodcraft? Can’t say I’ve heard of it. Does it have something to do with that tentacle thing she was feeding on too?”

Valen went silent. She deserved to know. Cyril was her partner after all. They might not have liked each other all that much but she still had a right to know what happened to him.

Still, he wasn’t sure if he should tell her the truth. It was dangerous knowledge and he’d already gotten his two best friends involved in this mess. He really didn’t need the life of one more involved person on his conscience.

“No,” he said softly after some quiet deliberation. 

“But you know what it’s about, don’t you?” said Keiko, sensing the hesitance in his voice. “Valen, you can tell me. Whatever it is, I can help you.”

Valen studied her face. She was serious, and he doubted she’d let him off the hook as easily as before if he refused to cooperate. Plus, after that martial arts fight she had with Valerie, it was clear that she could take care of herself.

“You’re not going to let this go this time, are you?” he asked her.

“Nope,” Keiko said with a grin.

“Honestly, I doubt you’d believe me if I told you.”

“Valen, I just saw your sister drink from a giant tentacle monster that turned into blood before whooping my arse with her own solidified blood. Whatever crazy shit you tell me will still be a better explanation than anything I can think of by myself.”

She had a point. At this point, trying to not get her involved was probably going to cause more trouble than it would solve. There was no turning back for either of them now, so he might as well come clean with her.

“Alright then.” Valen took a deep breath. “So, there’s this new religion…”

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