Page 33 of Dark Souls

Demonic vampires are troublesome to kill. In their vampire forms, wooden stakes may harm them but due to their demonic abilities, it will not kill them. If the Upir is killed in vampire form, they will resurrect. They can only be killed in their true demonic physical forms with limited methods. The answer lies with the demon’s soul. The soul must be extracted by either physical or spiritual force, effectively destroying its connection to the mortal realm.

My stomach tightened as I stared at the horrendous illustrations on the page. The first was the demon set alight, its whole body in a blaze of flames and its face in agony. I translated the caption underneath.

Hellfire: setting the demon on fire with cursed flames by a witch will send its soul back to Veles.

The second illustration was of a beheaded demon.

Decapitation will cause the soul to leave the body.

The next image was of the demon bound by some ritualistic prison, huddled in the dark, looking extremely sickly and skeletal.

A complex sealing ritual will render the demon powerless, trap it, and starve it to death. The process is slow and may take hundreds of years, but without feeding, the demon will perish and the body must be burned after death.

The final, and perhaps most gruesome, was of a demon ripped apart by what seemed to be a magical force.

Symbolic destruction, by obliterating a physical manifestation of the demon’s soul, will cause intense agony and ultimately lead to an excruciating death.

I sucked in a sharp breath, slamming the book shut, unable to look at the haunting images a moment longer. I felt sick. Which was a foreign concept for me. Horror and gore were my love languages. I could look death in the face over and over and be completely unaffected, but there was just something about the cruelty of those images that really disturbed me. Maybe it was having to imagine that every single Demonski Upir that had ever lived suffered from one of those horrific deaths at some point. It wasn’t simply a case of taking them out by combat or a weapon. Their murders had to be planned methodically. Or maybe it was just the idea that if I captured Heathen and handed him over to the SIA or my parents, that could be his fate.

I rubbed my temples and closed my eyes. I shouldn’t care about what happens to Heathen. After the amount of people he’d murdered over the years, many more than we even knew about, I’m sure, he deserved to be killed.

‘But we don’t know his motives!’Rue argued.‘The people he killed may not be innocent. How can we judge until we understand him? Our family kills supernaturals who are a threat to humanity but they still kill. We kill humans from the green list because of their crimes to feed. How do we know Heathen is not killing for similar reasons? The world is not black and white, Ilaria.’

‘I know that. But he killed that human for pleasuring me. He did nothing wrong. How are you going to justify that?’

She paused.‘An act of love.’

I scoffed, shaking my head at my infatuated counterpart.

‘All I am saying is we cannot condemn him just because he is a Demonski Upir. Haven’t we learned anything from the past? Our own grandpapi was hunted for being the first hybrid of equal powers because others feared him rather than trying to understand him. And look what happened to our mum as a child! People get shit wrong all the fucking time. I’m pissed that an entire breed of vampire was wiped from this realm. That just seems so wrong. I am sure not every demonic vampire deserved their death.’

I knew she was right. I couldn’t put the fate of Heathen into the hands of the SIA or even my family. Not while they believed he posed such a huge threat. Not until I delved deeper and uncovered the truth about who Heathen was and why he was doing what he was doing. He said he wouldn’t hurt me, and I may come to regret it, but I believed him. I may be the only person who could figure this out.

The intercom buzzed. I jumped up from the table and frowned. Strolling over, I pressed the button to find out who the hell would call on Neve’s flat.

“Who is it?”

“Your favourite human.”

I slammed my head against the wall.For fuck’s sake. How did he find me here?

“Ronnie, what are you doing here? And how the hell did you know I was here? Stalking me now?” I couldn’t help the small smile on my lips at the thought of having two stalkers.

He chuckled. “You’d be so lucky. I was at the palace, debriefing my last assignment with Archer and your mom. She said you were here today so I thought I’d stop by. Say hello. It’s been a hot minute.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve both been busy.”

“So, are you going to let me in or do you just get off on making me wait?” he flirted. My eyes darted over to the table full of old, supernatural history books and I chewed on my bottom lip.

“Nah, I’ll come down. I need a coffee.”

“Oh… I thought—” I didn’t let him finish as I cut the intercom and grabbed my bag. I knew what he’d thought.Feck buddy.But I couldn’t have him in here with all this stuff, getting suspicious and asking questions.

Heathen was still going to stay my little secret for now.

Coffee And Confessions

“Sothatwasalong mission. Two weeks in California. Must have been an interesting case.”

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