Plants and flesh had overrun the courtyard.

When she arrived at the Institute, Lord Och had blessed Marianne with quarters giving her an impeccable view of its hedge maze. Drinking tea while gazing at the plants through the window had been among her favorite small pleasures.

Weeks after she left Paraplex for Sabaoth, Marianne realized that these happy days were over. Thick black roots had grown through the Institute’s ground and risen as high as her window, shattering glass and stone alike.

The hedge had mutated into a forest of horrors. A bramble of thorny vines coexisted with dark trees covered in bloody-red eyes, their branches yielding beating hearts for fruits. Foul cysts and nauseous abscesses bloomed like flowers next to flesh lumps bloated with thick black blood. Blistering pustules released pus and fumes in the air everywhere she looked.

It took Marianne all of her strength not to vomit. Her enhanced senses picked up every foul flavor of this cancerous jungle. Nothing smelled as thick and strong as the scent of Ialdabaoth’s black blood, which suffused the entire structure. The stench of the Qlippoths was overwhelming.

A quick look at the blistering heart-fruits told her why. “These are eggs,” Marianne muttered as her enhanced eyes noticed the tentacles wiggling beneath the outer layers. “Qlippoth eggs.”

“The Outer Darkness corrupts all that it touches,” Valdemar replied as they stepped closer to the mutated forest’s outskirts. “Our magical defenses protect us, but everyone else…”

Holstering her revolver to ration her remaining bullets, Marianne raised her rapier with one hand and kept the other free. She had heard screeches from the nearby roofs and rustling among the fleshy plants.

“They’re coming,” she said before taking a deep breath. “He’s coming.”

The legions of the Outer Darkness emerged to devour life.

The heart-fruits hatched into a harvest of horrors. Each of them burst open to unleash a brood of tentacled Gnawers, of slimes with human faces or walking tumors with tongues for legs. The trees’ roots rose like legs to carry the abominable plants forward.

Dense flocks of vampire bats flew from the roofs in a red and black swarm. The foul power of Ialdabaoth had turned them into ravenous mutants with four wings and two mouths. Blood dripped from their sharp fangs.

Marianne faced the tide of horror without flinching by putting herself firmly in front of Valdemar. The overwhelming numbers did not frighten her. She had never faltered before evil and wouldn’t start today.

“Marianne.” Valdemar crossed his forearms while keeping his hands raised. Blood particles erupted from his fingers and his familiar’s eyes shone with a bright red light. “Stay close and cover me.”

The sheer magical power coming off from her companion unsettled Marianne. Space itself bent around his person and the air simmered. “What will you do?”

“Outnumber them.”

Marianne would have bet a hand that Valdemar was smiling beneath his mask as he tore reality apart.

A wall of fire rose between the verminous tide and Marianne. Blue flames incinerated plants and Qlippoths alike in a devastating blaze, reducing their flesh to ashes in seconds. Marianne covered her eyes to protect herself from the sudden burst of light.

A dozen fire elementals had materialized before her in a battle line on the ground, and half as many of their air cousins right above them. Swirling living wind currents fanned smokeless bonfires. Bats flew into them as fleshy animals and came out as dead charbroiled husks.

“You will set the Institute ablaze!” Marianne warned Valdemar as the world around her went down in flames. Worse, the inferno failed to make the Qlippoths relent. The interdimensional monsters charged through the wall of fire with suicidal recklessness, trampling their own dead in their hurry to reach Valdemar. Their red prince’s presence drove them into a maddened frenzy.

Like moths to a flame they flocked, though none of the Qlippoths reached their target. Marianne slew the few who managed to get past the flames. She gutted one half-burnt beast with her rapier, then a second and a third.

Eventually, the sheer amount of blood the elementals’ victims left behind drenched the flames. As the elementals returned to their home plane, Valdemar called more. The blood particles swirling around his hands scattered through the air and opened rifts in the tapestry of space.

More soldiers answered Valdemar’s call. Four-armed humanoid beasts roared as they smashed trees apart while toads with more mouths than fingers caught mutant bats with their tongues. The Qlippoths fought back fiercely, crushing the newcomers under their weight or tearing them apart with fangs and tentacles. But for one summoned thrall that fell, two more rose to fill the gap. Valdemar’s blood swirled around him like a crimson vortex, each droplet a seed blooming into a new defender.

Though she did not lower her guard, Marianne stopped to thrust her weapon left and right. A vast field of ashes and embers surrounded her and Valdemar, one expanded step after step by soldiers from other worlds. Ten meters separated the summoned monsters from their general.

Valdemar was calling a small army.

Summoning required blood, either to create a circle or to fuel a familiar’s connection to the higher planes. The two limits to a spellcaster’s potential were their skill and resources. In fact, Marianne had heard rumors that cults usually sacrificed dozens of prisoners of war to summon their otherworldly patrons. A single magician simply didn’t have enough blood to call more than a few servants at once.

But Valdemar Verney was no mere man. He was a demigod who regenerated blood almost as quickly as he spent it.

Marianne had seen her companion survive a dive into Lord Bethor’s boiling pools and heard even the Dark Lords call him unkillable. She now realized that he had never truly tapped into his full potential because he hadn’t been aware of his limits. For most of his life, Valdemar had thought he was a human with human limitations; only now did he understand just how powerful he was. Valdemar gave his summoned allies no direction; their only order was to advance and overwhelm the Qlippoths with their numbers. The cancerous forest that had so easily spread across the Institute was shrinking with each passing second.

Marianne suddenly realized that Lord Och’s proposal of letting his apprentice inherit his post wasn’t so far-fetched after all.

However, such an effort demanded considerable concentration; doubly so since Valdemar summoned creatures from different planes of existence altogether. He had not moved nor said a word in minutes, and though his allied creatures had established a vast defensive perimeter, keeping them anchored to Underland took all of his focus. Valdemar had made himself vulnerable.

He’s acting as bait, Marianne realized, and he trusts me to make use of it.

Their target made her presence known with a sneak attack.

A great shadow covered the duo as Bertrand descended upon them from behind. The vampire moved so swiftly that he would have looked like a blur to an untrained eye. The smoking remains of dead Qlippoths provided a cover of dust through which he moved, and his wings made no move as he flew. Marianne’s old retainer had become a vicious predator with sharp instincts.

The old Marianne wouldn’t have noticed his approach. The new one didn’t need to hear nor see to sense an enemy approach. She picked up the subtle differences in the air pressure in the vicinity, the slight changes in temperature, tiny hints that so few could notice.

Marianne raised her free hand and shot bone bullets from her fingers.

The five projectiles surged a few centimeters above Valdemar’s head to hit Bertrand as he descended upon the summoner. They all hit their mark at a critical bone joint and broke a wing. Bertrand fell behind Valdemar and blew ashes in all directions. Neither the sorcerer nor his familiar flinched, their minds entirely focused on powering their troops.

Marianne immediately moved behind her companion to intercept Bertrand. Her old retainer had mutated even further since they last met. He was more monster than man, a hairless horror with translucent skin and black veins underneath. His organs were visible; his liver and heart had eyes and his stomach looked like an oily eel with lamprey mouths all over its surface. His fleshy wings unfurled to reveal elongated arms and ropey growths for legs. His nails were blades of bone, his visage a crown of oily tentacles atop a fanged mouth.

There was a war between the man and the monster inside Bertrand. The man was losing.

As she faced the creature that was once her retainer, Marianne couldn’t help but be reminded of the Pleromian she fought in Blutgang’s facility. Their abuse of the Blood had slowly degraded the ancient creatures into near-mindless horrors. A similar process had been forced upon Bertrand, but he was in just as terrible a state as those who embraced the descent into inhumanity.

Is there anything left to save? Marianne thought as Bertrand snarled at her. His wing had healed from the wound she inflicted and he adopted a feral posture. He does not even recognize me.

She had to try in spite of her doubts.

“I abandoned you once,” Marianne said as she raised her rapier. She called upon the Blood, her body tensing up with inhuman strength. “Not this time.”

Bertrand lunged at her with terrible speed. His bladed nails thrust forward and clashed with Marianne’s edge in a sound that was half a scream and half a song. The noblewoman thought of the countless sparring sessions where she faced her retainer; of the countless exercises Bertrand put her through until she surpassed him utterly.

Today’s clash was no spar, but a dance.

The beast that Bertrand had become cared nothing for Marianne. The vile instinct that had taken him over only saw her as an obstacle between Valdemar and his dark destiny. If Marianne stepped aside to let Bertrand claim her companion, he would probably fly away with Valdemar and forget her.

He didn’t get through her. Like a dancer espousing their partner’s movements and guessing their steps to match their own, Marianne always moved in Bertrand’s way.

His skill with blades remained even in his monstrous state. She felt the steady pressure of a professional swordsman in their clashing blades. He parried her swings with his nails when she lunged at him the way he once did with an iron sword, tried to feint her, and didn’t fall for her own false openings.

Marianne found it unlikely that Bertrand’s reflexes had survived the transformation when his capacity for speech and reason did not. Her retainer fought with raging fury and couldn’t form words at all.

These new changes were not the result of chaotic mutations, but of planned design.

The force directing the ritual that had overtaken Pleroma had altered Bertrand, suppressing his human spirit but leaving his knowledge as a battle instructor intact. An intelligent will had emerged from the madness of the Qlippoths and the Verney cult, channeling their chaotic power in the service of methodical destruction.

The enemy had grown smarter. The thought frightened Marianne more than all of the monsters running around.

The beast her retainer had become struck with the intent to kill rather than teach. He waved his hands at her in a controlled fury, aiming for her head, for her heart and for her neck. Each strike her rapier deflected. Her soulbound sword, wielded by a steady hand, cut through his bladed nails as easily as cloth. No sooner did they fall on the ashes below their feet that new ones grew to take their place.

Though Marianne and Bertrand clashed among the ashes, none of Valdemar’s monsters moved to interrupt their duel. The summoner must have ordered them to ignore it.

He couldn’t trust them to pull their punches and keep Bertrand alive.

The mutant vampire let out a roar of frustration and flapped his wings. A blast of air sent ashes flying into Marianne’s face, forcing her to close her eyes. She heard Bertrand’s ropey appendages try to seize her ankle to make her stumble while his bladed nails crossed as they moved closer to her neck.

Marianne swiftly created a sword of bone in her free hand. The blade cut through Bertrand’s tentacled legs while her rapier parried his nails before they could behead her.

The sheer momentum behind the blow almost threw Marianne off her back, but she held firm. The Blood empowered her muscles and bones. Her single-minded focus on protecting Valdemar gave her purpose.

Marianne pushed Bertrand back and struck back.

Her blades crossed on his chest, cutting through his skin and bones. Black blood rained down Bertrand’s belly as Marianne struck muscles and ligaments. The vital organs she deftly avoided.

Bertrand roared as he lunged at her face with his mouth open. She kicked him back before he could reach her, his fangs closing on empty air. And when he tried to strike at her from the left with his bladed nails, Marianne severed his hand with a swift swing of her bone sword. His appendage went flying into the air and fell among ashen embers on the ground.

Bertrand unfurled his wing to fly away, a fountain of blood pouring out of his severed hand. Much like she surprised Lord Bethor, Marianne struck him from an unexpected direction. A sharp nail of bone erupted from her forehead and pierced through her skin at a cannonball’s speed. It cut through the joints of Bertrand’s left wing before he could take flight.

Marianne leaped forward even as blood dripped down her face while her foe was distracted. Her rapier finished her previous attack’s work and fully severed the left wing; her other blade she rammed through Bertrand’s belly and spine. After Bertrand fell on his back with a roar of pain, Marianne pinned his right wing to the ground with the bone sword.

“I am sorry,” Marianne apologized to the bloodied monster, “but you cannot win this.”

His transformation had made her old retainer stronger than ever, but Marianne’s growth far surpassed his. Bertrand had gained strength and resilience. His former student had learned something far more valuable.

Mastery.

Mastery not only of the sword, but of herself. Of her own strength. Her self-doubts had been cleansed away, her mind and body reinforced. Lord Bethor’s training had sharpened her senses and magnified her existing skills. Her potential had always been there, but now she made full use of it.

Killing Bertrand would have been easy.

Keeping him alive was harder.

Even after all the wounds Marianne gave him, he was already regenerating. His severed hand and wings started to grow back while he frantically tried to remove the sword keeping him to the ground. Marianne swung her rapier again and again, cutting off pieces of flesh as soon as they reappeared.

He’s not like Valdemar, she realized to her horror as Bertrand’s regeneration slowed down. He cannot do this forever.

Unlike Valdemar, who drew blood from the very substance of Underland, Bertrand relied on finite reserves. How long could she keep him diminished but alive? At which point would his regeneration fail Bertrand and his wounds slay him? Marianne couldn’t tell and it frightened her. Bertrand kept trying to get back up, the vile force that had enslaved him caring naught whether he lived or perished.

“You have done enough, Marianne,” said a thundering voice.

Lord Bethor made his presence known in a flash of crimson light as he teleported next to Marianne. The Dark Lord’s guests soon materialized at his side. Iren and Hermann stood in the shadow of an enormous canvas covered in painted runes and symbols, while Liliane had come wearing a bandolier full of herbs and potions.

Their arrival filled Marianne with relief.

“Is that Bertrand?” Liliane asked as she recoiled at the vampire’s sight. “By the Light…”

Bertrand roared at her, making her step back in surprise. Lord Bethor merely glanced at the vampire and his telekinetic might pinned him to the ground more easily than Marianne’s blade ever did.

“Please, Lord Bethor!” Marianne panicked at the sight. “Do not slay him!”

“I will give you one chance to cure him as per your plan,” the Dark Lord replied calmly.

Marianne knew from his tone that the ‘one’ part was key. If they failed to cure Bertrand…

“Liliane,” the noblewoman whispered. “My hopes are in your hand.”

“I’m your gal,” Liliane replied as she grabbed an empty syringe from a pouch and a potion from her stock. The flask containing it was no bigger than a thumb, the liquid within a vibrant shade of red. Marianne would have called it a molten ruby at first glance, but she knew it was something far more precious.

A drop of the Elixir of Life. The potion that promised eternal life.

“Valdy!” Liliane shouted. “I need your help!”

“I am ready.” Valdemar emerged from his stillness as his summoned creatures vanished. Of the cancerous forest of Qlippoths, only dust and corpses remained. “At your signal.”

Marianne bit her lower lip. “Valdemar—”

“We won’t fail,” he reassured her. “I swear.”

Marianne held her breath as she watched Bertrand’s operation. Liliane carefully examined the mutated vampire’s neck to find an artery, whereas Valdemar grabbed the shoulders. Bertrand struggled back against Lord Bethor’s influence to no avail.

“Ready, Valdy?” Liliane asked as she removed Marianne’s bone sword from Bertrand and filled her syringe with the elixir.

“Since the day I was born,” he replied.

Liliane stabbed Bertrand in the neck and pressed her syringe. Marianne watched in tense silence as the liquid flowed into the vampire’s veins, red elixir and black blood mixing together. Her heart skipped a beat as the latter appeared to subsume the former.

It happened again when Bertrand’s skin became whiter.

His body mutated before Marianne’s eyes. The march of time turned back as Bertrand shed his wings and tentacles. His fingers grew back to normal size. His legs and manhood grew back along with his ears and eyes. Within less than a minute, the monster vanished. In his place slept an old friend Marianne had thought gone forever.

But the illness was still in him.

Valdemar’s fingers melded with Bertrand’s shoulders. Their flesh mixed together and their veins connected. Marianne watched anxiously as black blood traveled from her retainer’s body to that of her companion. Valdemar absorbed Ialdaboath’s curse into himself. Marianne feared that it would corrupt him as it affected her retainer; that it would mutate him into a monster or give Ialdabaoth a foothold in his mind and flesh.

None of her fears materialized.

Valdemar absorbed the black blood into himself and then severed contact with Bertrand. He pulled back his hands from the vampire’s shoulders.

“Are you alright?” Marianne asked her companion with worry. Liliane, Iren, and Hermann looked at Valdemar, perhaps half-expecting him to grow wings of his own.

His answer filled them all with joy.

“I feel drained but I’m fine,” he replied. “And so is he.”

A vampire didn’t breathe nor produce a heartbeat. But as Lord Bethor released his grip and Bertrand opened his eyes, Marianne knew he was ‘alive’ again.

“Mi…” Bertrand’s throat was sore and his voice weak, but he said a word rather than a roar. “Milady?”

Marianne didn’t hold back her tears of joy. Her retainer and friend, who she had thought lost forever to the horrors of Underland, had been brought back to her safe and sound.

She had run away from the darkness once before.

Tonight she fought back and won.