Dancing with the Devil

Double kill

Kalista crumpled the scarf she had just torn off, shoved it roughly into his mouth, and kicked him mercilessly.

The Count fell into the soft bed as if in a swamp. All of a sudden, the darkness in front of him receded, the dazzling light of the room shone in his eyes, and he saw the girl's face, which was as pale as a ghost, with a satisfied smile on her lips.

It took him a moment to realize that the swamp was called "Death." He had been estranged from it for many years, thinking that he had long since fled to a corner that death could not touch.

Damn it, why should he end it? Why should he die at the hands of a woman? She is only a low, thin woman! On what grounds? On what grounds?

He opened his mouth and fluttered his hands and feet in vain. But the countless arms from the abyss scratched at his body and kept him sinking. There was a hum in his ears, the crying of babies, the howling of women, the neighing of demons - every drop of blood on his hands was a force pulling him into the abyss.

"Have a wonderful evening, dear Count."

Kalista spit out the shred of porcelain in her mouth and said goodnight to the man in the bed with loose eyes.

The blood was still pouring from the wound on the man's neck, staining the sheet into a gorgeous flower. Without expression, she rummaged through every pocket of the body's clothes, and, finding the key in the inner pocket, she neatly pulled it away and put it around her neck.

She took one last look at the man who had died in her hands, his eyes bulging, the luster of his eyes fading, but he was still staring at the ceiling.

Something's wrong.

Strange noises kept coming from somewhere.

"Sasha, Sasha --"

"Sasha, Sasha --"

"Sasha, Sasha --"

From faint to clear, Kalista's fingertips vibrated and a chill creeped out from her tail vertebrae to her head, causing her hair to stand on end.

For an instant, the empty eyes on the bed rolled and seized Kalista.

She jerked back.

A piece of almost transparent substance peeled off his face, and then another, each layer easily blown apart by the wind—his skin. The Count's body rapidly aged and shriveled into a desiccated corpse, its teeth grinding against each other with eerie trills. Something indescribable seemed to break free from his body, and a faint chill like a needle burrowed out of his broken skin. As Kalista stepped back, her back bumped into the round table, causing the plate to shake.

"Bang!"

The mummified body suddenly sat up from the bed, its sunken face forced into a twisted smile, and its two jaws opened and closed, the voice as harsh as grinding teeth.

"I'll kill you!"

The mummified body lunged towards Kalista, but she dodged just in time to evade its grasp. However, the sudden movement caused her to collide with a wooden chair, which in turn knocked over the round table. The tray, along with the knife, clattered to the ground, the blade grazing a strand of her hair.

Kalista found herself in a disordered heap on the floor. She swiftly rolled over and drew her knife, but the mummified figure was already looming over her, a grotesque grin on its face as it held a handful of her hair between its shattered fingers. The pressure was excruciating, tearing at her scalp, as it attempted to peel away her skin.

Despite the agony, Kalista managed to grip her knife and thrust it upward, aiming for the mummified body's neck. She heard the sickening snap of bone as the blade sank deep into its already ravaged wound, nearly severing its neck. The creature collapsed in an unnatural pose atop Kalista, yet it showed no signs of weakening, and the scent of blood seemed to fuel its frenzy even more.

Disgusting creature!

Kalista managed to dodge the creature's bite, kicking the table and chairs that were pinning her down out of the way. With a powerful kick, she sent the mummified body sprawling. She bit back her pain and rose from the ground, snatching up anything within reach and throwing it at the creature, smashing it, and hurling debris at it. Its body began to disintegrate, yet it continued to writhe, as if some unseen force was holding the fragments together, preventing its complete destruction.

In her hand, all she had left was a table knife. The mummified body, its skeleton pieced together haphazardly, stood crookedly in her path, blocking her way to the knight at the door.

But she can't die here.

Clutching her only weapon, she forced herself to remain calm and faced the creature, breathing heavily.

The remains continued to amass, decaying and regrowing as if driven by a relentless victory. The creature's bones creaked with an eerie anticipation as it lurched towards Kalista.

No --

Somewhere within the jumbled mass of bones and flesh, something was beckoning "them" back to their original form.

Kalista's gaze fell upon a faint glimmer, hidden deep within the creature's flesh. Without a moment's delay, she lunged forward, driving the knife into the mummified body's chest with all her strength.

The point of the knife seemed to hit something hard, and the mummified body convulsed as the flesh struggled to gather where the knife had gone, swallowing Kalista's hand with all its might and trying to wring her arm off.

Despite the pain, Kalista held the knife firmly, wrapping her legs around the creature and falling backward with it. She sustained several cuts on her thigh and her arm was pierced by broken bone, but she refused to let go.

The silver knife twisted within the creature's heart, piercing and tearing at the tiny, dense core repeatedly until all resistance faded, and the oppressive force crumbled.

The mummified face hovered inches from Kalista's nose, its jaws closed, forever frozen in a state of astonishment.

Kalista kicked the withered body away and collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

The fallen silver dinner plate mirrored her weary countenance. Her face was smeared with blood and grime, yet her eyes shone with an unsettling brightness. She locked eyes with her reflection for a moment, then grabbed a dinner cloth and tossed it over her shadow. She drew the curtains of the window, soaked herself in the water basin at the foot of the bed, and wiped her face clean. Then she swiftly donned her lady-in-waiting attire, which had been scattered about. Her blood-stained form was concealed beneath a pristine maid's dress, which was why she initially engaged in a game of chase with the Count.

She regulated her breathing, retrieved the powder concealed in her stocking, and mentally rehearsed the dialogue she intended to deliver to the knight. However, as she approached the door, the soles of her feet felt as though they were thickened with some sort of liquid, and when she glanced down, the tips of her shoes were crimson. Blood was seeping into the room through a fissure beneath the door, and Kalista heard the tip of a sword glide over the knight's armor.

In hindsight, she realized that the commotion within the room had been so intense that the knight who was supposed to be guarding the door had never knocked or inquired. He was dead.

And the murderer was merely a door away from her.

The tip of the sword scraped across the blood-stained floor. Kalista made a firm decision and moved back to the wall. The devil did not require a sword, so the killer beyond the door must be accountable to the countess. In reality, the countess did not need Kalista to murder her husband. All she needed was a maid "who had infiltrated the underground palace with questionable motives" to be found in the chamber where the count met his demise, ideally to be slain on the spot by knights "arriving to the rescue".

Kalista would be framed as the assassin responsible for the count's death and subsequently for the knights' demise.