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“Sophie! Sophie, are you okay?” Kain slid to his knees by her side and gave Alexi his torch. “We’re here, baby. You’re safe now.”
She was curled up on the stone floor, with her back against the wall. She had covered her head with her arms and hidden it between her trembling knees, and her whole body was rocking back and forth, her spine touching the wall rhythmically. Her long, now dirty skirt muffled her sobs, and her disheveled hair covered her face.
“Come here…” Kain tried to pull her into his arms, but she flinched away. “What happened? Tell me what happened, baby…”
“Kain…”
It was Alexi’s voice. The gravity in it took the blond by surprise, and he looked up to see what his partner had discovered.
“I think… I think he’s dead.”
Kain threw Sophie a worried glance, unsure if it was okay to leave her there for a moment. He stood up and walked to where Alexi was standing. “Oh,” he gasped. “I don’t… sense his aura.”
“Because it’s gone.”
They were both looking at a very thin and very pale Casimir D’Argyle lying on the floor. His eyes were open, but the sparkle in them was gone. His once sharp and elegant features were now nothing more than a skull covered in white, wrinkled skin, and his long, silver hair looked as if it was slowly receding, leaving his forehead bald and shiny. Kain and Alexi shuddered. It was then that they realized how incredibly cold this place was.
“I didn’t mean to…”
They turned to Sophie. She was still rocking and hiding her head between her knees, but at least she had spoken.
“He wanted to take me somewhere… He said no one would ever find me there. I couldn’t let him, but I didn’t mean to do this to him. I just wanted him to stop.”
Alexi placed the torches on the floor, next to her dying one, and knelt beside her. Kain did the same.
“Shh… it’s okay, sweetie,” said Alexi. “Look at me.” He tried to unhook her arms from around her head, but he had no luck. This whole situation confused him. He threw Kain a worried look, and he immediately saw the blond was just as shocked and confused as he was, and for good reason. Sophie was a new cambion. Only a month ago, she was an apprentice and was learning how to control her powers. Yes, she was stronger than most cambions, but she still couldn’t have been strong enough to actually kill a demon with her sigil and aura alone, most certainly not a demon as ancient and powerful as Casimir.
“Sophie,” tried Kain. “Can you remember anything? How did it happen?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” She started sobbing again, and a few minutes passed before she was ready to speak. “My energy… it doubled. I don’t know how… I just felt that my demon sigil was growing and growing, burning stronger and brighter… I don’t… I didn’t mean to…” She broke down crying, and both Kain and Alexi tried to comfort her by hugging her awkwardly and rubbing her shoulders. Given the fetal position she was in, they couldn’t do much.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” said Alexi.
Kain ignored him. It was more important to calm Sophie down and convince her to stand up. They would get to the bottom of this afterwards. “We know you didn’t mean to, baby. It’s all right, he didn’t deserve to live. Just remember what he wanted to do to all those innocent humans. You did nothing wrong, Sophie.”
“Killing someone is wrong!” she shouted. She straightened her back and looked deep into the blond’s eyes. “Don’t you ever dare tell me it’s all right. It’s not!”
Kain sighed, but didn’t say anything. It was always hard the first time. He wondered how many demons had Alexi killed, either intentionally or by mistake, and he realized he wasn’t sure if the Russian had ever killed one. He, on the other hand… Well, he had a history he didn’t particularly like talking about.
“You said your sigil was growing,” said Alexi. He couldn’t let her fall into despair again, or she would end up sitting in fetal position for hours. He needed to distract her. “Could you show it to me?”
Sophie turned to him, confusion evident in her eyes. “I… yes…” With trembling hands, she started undoing the ribbons of her corset. Alexi helped her, and when the corset was gone, his fingers worked on the small buttons of her dress. She was too shaken to do much, so he let him pull her dress open and reveal the roundness of her breasts and the tender skin of her stomach. She knew her sigil was still burning bright. She could feel it.
“Oh my…” whispered Alexi.
“What…? How…?” Kain didn’t even know which question to ask first.
The demon sigil on Sophie’s stomach was now surrounded by a second one, which looked like nothing they had seen before. It had an entirely different pattern. While demon sigils were usually made of small circles, lines and triangles, this one looked a lot like a mandala. Long, elegant lines formed a complex, flowery model that encircled Sophie’s original demon sigil which she had activated over two months ago with the help and guidance of her mentors. How did this one appear? What triggered it? And, most importantly, what did it signify?
Sophie looked down at her stomach to see what had gotten Kain and Alexi so distressed. Her eyes grew wide at the sight of the new mark. It covered most of her abdomen and it looked completely out of this world. She had studied three books on demon sigils at Lure Academy, and in none of them had she found anything similar to the thing on her body.
“What in hell’s name is this?”
Neither Alexi, nor Kain could take their eyes
off the mysterious pattern.
“I don’t know,” said Alexi. “But whatever it is, it was the Count’s undoing.”
