Chương 66: Chapter 59 - The Evil Vampiress

His… wife? The word punched its way into my head, and started flipping furniture. Three things hit me at once, and my brain jammed on all three simultaneously, which by now was becoming a tradition. One, Cassandra was married. She was married the entire time I'd known her. Two, she purposefully lied to me to keep in the tower, so that we could fuck without the risk of being caught. And three, she was a vampire, which she also lied about, but Sarah's sword was humming at my hip. The happy tune.

Like a dog that had just spotted its favorite person across a park. Much like in the Church base. Or, more precisely in retrospect, around Verchiel. Being raised by succubi taught a man a thing or three, and the first of them was that the face went blank before the brain caught up. Mine went blank. I kept walking, because stopping mid-step would have said more than any words could.

"I'm Damian," I said, offering a hand.

"One of the climbers." Hutriel took it. His grip was warm, friendly, and could have compressed coal into diamonds as a side effect.

"The Little Horn." He smiled.

"Your climbs are the most entertaining to watch." Oh, great, he was genuinely nice. I needed to unsummon myself.

"Guilty as charged."

"Nice!" He let go of my hand and pointed at me like I'd won something.

"I watch the broadcasts when work allows. The trap floor was the best." Cassandra came out from behind the pod the way people come out from behind cover when the cannon fire is still ongoing, but they just have to risk it. Her mask was on. It was also running at about sixty percent functionality, and I would know. I'd spent quite some time cataloguing every model she owned.

The smile was the professional one, the posture was the workstation one, and neither of them fit her face right, like clothes borrowed in a hurry.

"Damian has just returned from a long climb," she said. Her voice was steady in the painfully manufactured way.

"Back to register himself for the next floor, I suppose." Nice exit strategy. Thanks.

"Yes, precisely. I will be ready to climb the day after tomorrow."

"Very well," Cassandra stepped next to Hutriel, motioning over the tablets. She swiped a bit to get to my account.

"Back to work, I see," Hutriel said with a smile.

"I can't wait to watch the stream."

"I hope it'll be great." I didn't manage to smile back.

"By the way, for how long have you been together? You look great as a couple." Cassandra's expression exploded for the split second before it recomposed.

"We do, don't we?" Hutriel caught Cassandra by the waist and pulled her a touch closer.

"We've been married for fourteen years." FOURTEEN FUCKING YEARS? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, CASSANDRA? I screamed inside. I said nothing, keeping my face neutral.

"That's wonderful. Well, sorry for the interruption, just needed to make sure I wasn't on tomorrow's roster." I spun on my heel, walking away in the most controlled manner of my life.

"Good luck on the climb tomorrow," Hutriel called after me.

"Thanks." I made it out, and finally exhaled. Before I even got out of the main building, my phone buzzed. I pulled it out. One notification sat on the lock screen like a landmine with a ribbon on it. From How Much I Owe to Cassandra app. Against my better judgment, I opened it. From My Owner, it read: our spot. Two words in lower case. An emergency message. I should delete the app and ignore that. But I also wanted answers.

We were going to break up over this, but I wasn't letting her get away with a silent ghosting. No, I was going to have a full-on screaming fit. She deserved that. And our spot was perfect for it. But first, I was going to have a meal. The kebab stand was still open. The man behind the counter had my lamb doner moving before I reached the front, took one look at my face, and doubled the garlic sauce. No questions asked. Next, I returned to the main building and got a bottle of alcohol.

All wine had a cork, which I refused to deal with, so I grabbed a tequila. That one went with kebab just right. Properly geared, I headed to our spot. The rooftop hadn't changed. Flat metal, low wall on three sides, the ocean on the fourth, the tower a column of absolute black against the stars to the east. Last time I'd come down this ladder, I'd been grinning like an idiot with a sunrise in my chest. Yeah, so that wasn't how tonight was going to end.

I sat by the low wall, ocean side, and let my legs rest on the roof. I unwrapped the kebab, and ate it. I barely tasted it. My mind couldn't focus on anything other than Cassandra. I opened the bottle. It tasted like paint and lost ambitions. I drank it anyway. How did I miss that? It wasn't like the clues weren't there. The fear, the embarrassment, the literal name from Yushi. I just chose to not investigate any of them further. I wasn't sure what was more embarrassing, me missing that, or the whole vampire thing.

Like, literally having a beer with Liu or Henrik and asking them would have gotten me the information. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Wind brought a cloud of mist. It gathered, and formed into Cassandra. Ah, fuck. She sat down next to me, back to the wall. She reached for the tequila. I jerked it away. As if I would share.

"WHAT THE FUCK, CASSANDRA?" I shouted.

"I don't even know what lies to start with." She chuckled, which made the heat rise into my head even faster.

"I should say that I'm sorry I lied to you." She smirked.

"But I'm not."

"Seriously? The Hague? Did you seriously threaten me with the international justice court to keep me in the tower so we could fuck without the risk of being caught by YOUR HUSBAND?"

"It was a setup that made itself." Her smirk turned a notch more vicious.

"Nobody eats a girl out like a man who truly believes his life depends on it. Or are you going to tell me you put so much effort into diddling with your succubi?"

"That's not the point!" I shouted.

"Stop shouting. Don't waste all the energy that could be used for the angry make-up sex." Was she serious?

"No, Cassandra there's not going to be anything like that. We're fucking do—" The word died in my mouth. An immense pressure pushed against my mind. Her crimson eyes shone as they bore into mine. I pulled on my shields, mustering a defense. It was like trying to stop a tide with bare hands. And I needed to save mana, not to waste it all away fighting the inevitable. She was at full mana, and I had less than ten percent. She could effortlessly overpower me. So, I let it happen.

Her magic invaded my mind, forcefully calming down my thoughts. Ah, a mind-controlling spell. Splendid. Cassandra pushed herself off the wall, put a leg over me, and sat into my lap. She pressed herself against me, so that her head got to the side of mine. She placed her searing lips against my ear, whispering, "Do not say things I would regret. You played with my feelings, Damian. You made me feel things I have literally never felt in my life. That I thought were impossible for me to feel.

You do not have the option of walking away." I wanted to shout. But the mind-control forced me to remain calm. It was like a wall that disallowed anything she wouldn't like from being said.

"What did I do so wrong?"

"I am a vampire. I am young, even in human years. But everyone knows I am an evil vampire, one of the high vampires. Everyone knows vampires are evil, just as everyone knows demons are evil. You should understand that better than anyone." I snorted.

"It's not like they're wrong about either of us." She chuckled, the laugh reverberating from her chest into mine.

"True. Even among high vampires, I am the black sheep of the family. The evilest, the most twisted one. And that was why it hit so much harder when you came, knew absolutely nothing of me, of vampires, of secret societies, of power rankings, of all the things that would have stopped you, and simply started hitting on me because I was hot, all the while being powerful enough to be a potential partner. I never even thought it could happen." And to my misfortune, I was good at it.

All the succubus training paid off in the worst possible moment.

"I didn't even do that much."

"Exactly. Everyone else knows that ignoring me is a dance with death. And so they're all tense and super-attentive and shit their pants when I look wrong at them. They're all boring. Or, alternatively, they are so weak they would die when I cough around them. A certain amount of power disqualifies you from the ordinary human society, and I am very far past that point." How unusually sharing. Time to dig up some intel, at the very least.

"What about Hutriel?" She sighed, her lips finally leaving my ear. Her chin braced on my shoulder.

"I was young back then. Fresh after I escaped from my mother's caring imprisonment. Nobody knew who I was back then, and he was everything I then wanted from a man. I loved him, once. But as time went on, the world learned of me. I did help it here and there, and soon enough, I was the monster everyone knew of, and everyone feared. And I changed with it. It's not just that abyss stares back. It's that there is no bottom to it."

"Why are you still with him, then?"

"Because he's a great man. He deserves a much better partner than I am. It's an extremely low bar to clear, to be fair, but still. He's an angel in the literal sense, a man blessed by a power of an angel from Heaven. I was a good person once, worthy of him. I am not anymore. But I don't have the heart to hand him the divorce papers."

"Send them by a courier." A snort escaped her lips.

"You know the logistics aren't the problem. I just can't bring myself to do it. I know I will have to. I have even saved up a whole sperm bank of his, so that when he finally has a wife that he can have family with, he's got backup if I've worn him out too much in the meantime." What a messed up, and a sweet thing to arrange at the same time.

"But anyways." She slid up my neck to press her lips against my ear again.

"About us. You've locked me down successfully, so now you'll have to live with the consequences."

"So, what, you'll now mind-control me to fuck you?"

"No, that is always mechanical and boring. Trust me, I've tried. Extensively. I prefer blackmail. It leads to significantly more intense results… as you've proven. Plus, it's not like you don't want to. You were perfectly fine with me right up until Hutriel showed up. Once I divorce him, you'll get over it." I grunted.

"You're still a lying bitch."

"I am. And you're the type of man who wipes out his own team because they aren't moving fast enough. You are not a good man, Damian. You deserve a partner like me. You've spent your whole life earning all the things I will do to you."

"You're fucked up."

"I know." She slid down to my neck. Fangs pierced her gums, and she bit into my throat. In a blurring haze that mixed terror, the imminent feeling of dying, and pure, magic-induced excitement, she drank my blood. And the spell still kept me in position. She tore herself off, and licked the wounds to seal them with her saliva.

"God, you taste delicious. I'd drink you dry if it wouldn't kill you." I breathed it out. That was something.

"Happy I taste well, I guess."

"You've got no idea." She chuckled.

"A bit of family history. Before you were born, after my mother killed your father—don't worry, he got better—she took his blood, and extracted any shreds of divinity of the original Lucifer she could. There's something about your bloodline that makes you taste like nothing else to mine. And you haven't inherited any of your father's demonic bullshit, so you're perfectly drinkable for me." When my mother killed your father… right. I just happened to hit on the worst possible person in the world.

Exactly what I wanted from life.

"Demonic bullshit?"

"You've split your father's inheritance with your brother. You inherited the spirit, so you've got all the mana and talent for magic. He inherited the blood and the demonic bullshit. I bit him once when he slept, and then I spent the next hour chain-regenerating my face because the few droplets of blood kept melting it off." She licked my neck again.

"Don't lock your door at night. I'll be dropping in frequently. Or do. It won't make a difference." I frowned.

"How did your mother drink my father's blood then?"

"Hmph." She paused, frowning.

"Right... why can't I drink Peter then? That's unfair. I could have had you both on a tap." Hmph, so at least she wasn't going to cheat on me with my brother. Yay me. And like how her mother drained my father dry, she was going to drain me dry. Perfect.

"Are you working with Paradise?"

"No." She rolled her eyes.

"As I have told everyone else, the tower generates the floor progression by itself. I just read the information and set the pods accordingly. But back to what's important. I am not a loyal partner, but I do demand absolute loyalty. I will seal your succubus into a jar if I catch her as little as touching your arm." Oh, just wait until I get enough mana to summon Elsha. We were going to have a sharp renegotiation of terms the second I had the proper backup.

On the plus side, her having some spiritual relation to Lucifer suggested she wasn't connected to Paradise. They wouldn't need me for the blood of the slayer if she worked with them, as they could just tap her. Or maybe not, because the heck a divinity extract even was? Also, unless the blood of the slayer referred to The Slayer achievement I got on floor 25. I had no way to tell.

"Now..." Cassandra formed a devilish smile.

"So you know that I'm serious, I will tell you something I never speak about. I am literally made of the original devil's divine inheritance. That gives me access to the original divine power of Lucifer, teleportation. It makes me immune to everything a vampire is normally vulnerable to, and it gives me a role in the grand mythos of God. And it's not a heroic one. You are the only person I've ever told this, and just like you are the first person to whom I've ever intentionally shown that I'm immune to sunlight.

My family doesn't know. Hutriel doesn't know. Gilgamesh doesn't know. Nobody knows. That's how serious I am about this." She stood up, finally getting off me.

"Now, I need to go figure out how to divorce my husband in the least harmful way possible. And you need to drink a lot of water. It helps with the production of both blood and sperm. You'll need them in plenty." She turned into mist, which the wind blew apart. I grabbed the bottle, took a long swig, and headed to my place. I've sure gotten into one hell of a mess.