Author’s note: I do not own anything, I make no money, I roast marshmallows with flames and make tasty smores. (Who actually flames/gets flamed? I almost never see this.) I do the review dance of joy! Thanks for the encouragement; I’m glad this fun to read. Cookies for everyone!

“Darnit…” He wanted to turn it off and conserve battery, but it was to dark to chance that down in the aquaducts. “Well, how about getting out of here? How do I…”

Death was gone, the bare wall mocked him. It was not a relief.

It had taken almost an hour to find his way out of the aqueducts, and now, with those wet stones behind him Soma’s spirits rose. There had been no supernatural opposition to his passage through the tunnels. No mermen, no ice spirits, and no guardian for the area. Nice as it had been at the time it was now unnerving, to go this far and see no monsters… did that happen in real life? His shirt was drying from a second unexpected dip, and despite the odds his phone had once again been spared. Battery life was getting dangerously low though… (Where is this? It looks like…) stained glass, marble angels contorted in pain, a pulpit…(No question there, this is the chapel.) He walked along the carpeted isle, thoughts drifting.

(Why would a demonic castle have a chapel? It’s a stupid question, but one day I’ve got to ask it. This place disturbed me the first time…) A quick glance around, (…it was larger then, it was larger than this the second time too. If fact this is the least impressive I’ve seen it. Still no monsters…) The alter loomed before him, it was cracked along the side. (I wonder if they need to be summoned, like the lights. If that’s the case I’m in luck, passing through will be a breeze. Even better, no monsters means the other passenger’s are alive and missing, just missing.) A smile tugged at his lips, sharply out of place in the solemn room. (Go figure, I summoned it and I botched it. Even if I did drop it on the shrine…) a wince, (which Mina will laugh about, after she kills me and uses my blood in a ceremony to restore its sacred aura...) Soma paused, shook his head,( Wait… that makes no sense at all, blood ceremonies are dark—I’m thinking too deeply into this.)

He stopped and checked his surroundings again. No changes had occurred; the chapel was still small, and still deserted. (Bizarre.)

Somewhere down the hallway a door shut. Soma jumped, kicked himself for it a moment later. He could hear footfalls coming down the hall and towards his space. (No monsters, was I out of my mind?!) He jumped to the platform and ducked behind it just as the chapel door opened.

“I can’t help it, I didn’t mean it, and he walked into it himself--I will not feel bad! Cease to plead with me!” It was a woman’s voice, irritated and huffy.

“I plead not! But you really shouldn’t have laughed, poor dear; he was so embarrassed as was…” A second woman, she sounded on the verge of laughing herself.

“Well he should have been! If he hadn’t been trying to take that much at one time he could have seen where he was walking. Its fortune alone he didn’t slide in it and fall.”

(What is this?) Soma fought the urge to peak, his face pulled with confusion. (Succubus? No… I’ve never heard them talk to each other like this. Demon maids? In the chapel? This doesn’t make any sense… They sound human, but not from the train.) Whatever they were they were coming closer, the softer voice giggled, the warmer tone sighed as if impatient.

“So close to a campaign and already making a mess, it makes me worry for them once they leave…”

“There’s no good fretting Elizabeth, soldiers come and go. Nothing will get past our lords. I hear they have gained some renown…”

“…I worry regardless. Sometimes, at night, I have the most fantastic dreams about them.”

“About them… hmm? Or about “Him.”

“I disapprove where your mind has wandered! Leon is there as well…”

“And that I disapprove.”

“Hold your tongue, you say terrible things! It is not that way at all. Villages burn, and battles are fierce. Sometimes… in my dreams, they lose.” There is a hush to that voice now, and then a shaky breath, “And I know they are but dreams, but they stay with me, even when I’m awake…”

The other has a softer tone now too, as if to conspire with her fellow. “…Is that why you wanted to come here? I did not realize, but you have been troubled…”

“No, it is cool here and hot outside.” Gone is the hush, there is warmth again, and some irritation has returned. “ I merely wanted a moment to relax…”

(Leon…) The name tugged at something, a memory, a dream? Soma grasped for it vainly in his hiding space, listened as the women moved further and further it, closer and closer to him. Curiosity overrode His caution and he stood up behind the pulpit.

He expected to be attacked. His hands were fisted, his breath was braced.

Nothing.

The door was not open and no one stood in attendance down the aisle. The two women had, seemingly, never been there at all. Disbelieving Soma walked down the steps, looked around for any signs of habitation he might have missed. Still nothing, the castle had swallowed them without a whisper. “…This is ridiculous. I couldn’t have imagined that. What is going on here?”

The aura of the small space closed in, became heavy and oppressive. Soma shook it off as best he could, made his way to the door. A glimmer of moonlight caught the edge of something metal and heralded a change of fortunes for the better. (This is more like it!) It was only a short sword, but that was better than hands alone by far. If he ran into a skeleton he’d be well off. (Maybe I’ll find some warmer clothes as well, this T-shirt isn’t great for cold castle explorations.) The strange voices were almost out of mind, he had other things there now. He needed to reach the first of the furnaces so he could find the other passengers.

But distantly that name bothered him still… (Leon…)

The hallways seemed to stretch on forever; perhaps they did, he had no way to be sure. The sword felt right in his hand, comforting, distantly he realized he’d missed carrying around an armament in daily life. The hilt filled his grip like an old habit, like a familiar pair of shoes you didn’t feel fit to go out without. It seemed he’d developed a comfort in the cold metal. (Well, considering how often this sort of thing has saved me it’s probably normal… I still have no idea where I’m going. Maybe the ballroom..? I don’t remember seeing any furnaces in my previous adventures anywhere. If I was a furnace… where…?)

The doors before him opened under his hand and spread themselves across the threshold of an inner garden. A variety of blooms stretched up from the flowerbeds to vainly reach for the moon enfolded between the castles soaring towers. The air was sweet…with an underlying waft of rot that made it foul where the mist was thick. Soma breathed through his mouth and resolved to pass this place quickly. Beneath his sneakers the dirt padded his steps, his progress was almost silent, and the sounds of the rustling greenery seemed to increase in volume as he neared the center of the layout. He put on more speed, the smell was reaching him even with his best efforts to block it. Despite himself he began to notice odd markings on the ground as he hurried on his way, almost archaic in their complicated line working. (First furnaces, then ghosts that don’t attack, then gothic crop signs... Nothing is the same.)

He’d seen symbols like those along every step he’d made so far, and he’d ignored them, just as he would continue to do now. They reminded him of the seals he’d been forced to use to defeat high ranked monsters in the last castle encounter, if they were as similar as he suspected they were probably trouble.

Relief was instant as he exited the garden, the foul air held at bay behind him by another door. Catching his breath he examined his newest surroundings. Surprise caught him and held him; he had run right into a teleport room. It looked different of course, he didn’t recognize the paintings on the wall, but the atmosphere had the right charge to it. It caused the hairs to stand on his arms, like a shock of static electricity, and that feeling was hard to forget. (I’ll have to go back out; this won’t take me anywhere until I’ve found one of its partners.) Soma didn’t move from his leaning against the wall, the sword was loosely drooping in his grip. (No reason not to rest a moment though, these rooms are always safe.) The thought of those five messages on his cell phone reared its head. He’d almost forgotten them with all the ground he’d covered.

(It could be Genya or Yoko, I should see what they say.) He reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone. (…what?) A closer examination revealed that all five messages had been left by unrecognized numbers. Genya and Yoko had called, but they hadn’t left anything for him to hear. (…) It didn’t matter; he couldn’t call them back from here. The castle seemed to be an uncovered cell zone. (I won’t have any bars until I get out of here.) He entered his password and waited to hear the first message.

Before the automated voice could finish telling him when the message had been left the ground rolled beneath his feet. Soma almost dropped the phone, the floor continued to move. He couldn’t make out the message over the noise caused by the stones grinding and pulling against their foundation. (What is this?! There’s no way this thing can be active now!) The walls began to bulge and strain, rattling their bricks. Soma snapped the phone shut and braced to be sent to another part of the castle. That is not what followed.

Before his eyes the entire layout of the room was shifting, individual bricks re-aligning, faces broke out and peered and snarled at him through the cracks. Hands reached for him, creatures roared and writhed, much like the scenes in a choppy movie it played, mystifying and nauseating. Soma fought to keep his footing thought the floor was obviously trying to throw him into the hands of the walls. Escape occurred to him, but it was a hope all to soon crushed by the absence of the door. Soma held the sword out before him, braced against the bucking floor determined to take whatever was coming. And something was coming, he could feel it in his gut.

With sudden violence the floor at the far end of the3 small room exploded outward, tossing Soma to the ground. One hand stretched out as he began to fall, hoping to catch himself, but it slid out from under him as he skidded across the stones and into the wall. The shock of the impact stole his breath, his forehead slammed into the brick with dazing force.
Scarlet filled his vision, it was lucky, the pain was all that kept him aware. Out of the cracks beneath him he could feel fingers grasp his shirt, holding him down. Pulling him down. (Why… why is this… happening..! This Castle… this place… it hates me, but I called it!) Thousands of eyes peered into him, dissecting his soul, spreading his spirit bare. Distantly he recognized the danger but he was still stunned by the blow. Underneath the noise he could hear the sound of something dragging itself towards him from the hole in the floor. Blood was welling up from his forehead and tinting his vision, deep inside his powers, suppressed by lack of souls, struggled to unfold in their cage of flesh and bones.

(I called it, had power over it. Is it fighting that…? Trying to destroy…) glazed eyes widened (Him. It’s trying to destroy… him. It hates him? It hates him!) The cracks were getting larger below him, though he could not see it, seeking to pull him down. Below his face something blew foul breath upon him, stared down at him with shark like eyes. Its jaws spread, it reached for him…

Soma snarled, lips curled back in a subconscious attempt to bluff. For a moment they breathed the same rank air, for a moment they held gazes. The room screamed, the stones moved, the fingers pulled and nails scratched his skin. The eyes gleamed in the darkness and the faces twisted with victory as for a moment, just a moment, Soma considered that this might actually be the end of everything. This bizarre scene might be the last thing he saw.

And at that thought, despite himself, he laughed.

The sound rose unnaturally among the chorus of discord and the other noises died off as they puzzled the change. The eyes of the creature above him widened, showing a white ring; he laughed harder. The blood continued to drip and even that sound seemed to swell, become louder and louder, he felt numb, he felt alive. Underneath his skin he felt a darker presence than Dracula’s powers spread and reach forward, clenching the neck of the horror above him. He tossed back his head and grinned at the monstrosity before him, his smile holding strong even as the hands that had held him twitched and jerked away as though burned. Free to stand he did so, a strange dual perspective coloring his thoughts. No, he would need no souls for this, raw power would suffice and that he had. He knew without knowing what needed to be done.

Eyes glowing, blood dripping, lips snarling around the end of a chuckle, his friends would be hard pressed to recognize him now. There was a light in the darkness, cold and misty. It swept across his face making ice chips of his eyes and turning his smile into a jagged line. Step by step he moved against the force of the castles malice, the walls screamed, the reaching hands pulled back, became placating, the stones jerked against each other, fighting to re-align. Beneath his steps the ground locked, the eyes disappeared. Soma felt as though he was caught in a dream, and he was falling… and unafraid. He spread his arms to embrace the abyss… And before him his arms spread, palms pressed to the wall. The air was charged, waiting for the lightning to strike, Soma waited for the end of the dream.

His hands shook. In the back of his mind the ground rushed up, underneath his palms the stones grew still. With soft snarls and oaths the peering faces withdrew, the hands faded, the eyes shut.

Whatever it had been it seemed done. Soma closed his eyes, his legs shook… The end of the fall never came.

His breaths coming in shaky pants, his palms slick with sweat, he slid down to land on the floor. (It hates him… hates him…) He tried to still the shaking that seized him but failed, it was too cold suddenly… the floor was like ice zapping away his body heat. One hand rose to brush the blood off of his forehead, out of his eyes. (I’ve got to stop hitting my head… that’s the second time tonight…) Limply his palm fell back to the floor, leaving a streak of red against the stones. (Have to stop… before I…) His eyes were shutting, he fought against it. (I…) The world swam and faded away. Darkness descended.

The red line across the stones dripped into the cracks and ran straight and true into a seal upon the floor. In the clock tower the bells began to swing.