Too beautiful to be called a monster. Yet to be enchanted by that beauty was to consign everything around it to carnage.
Erin had risen to the rank of captain of the paladins with a single, lifelong vow: she would kill that thing. One day, strange phenomena—presumed to be the work of a demon lord—began to occur.
When the chance for vengeance finally arrived, she found herself paralyzed by the demon’s overwhelming power, swallowed by despair because she could do nothing. It was then that Gabriel—the silver demon—appeared as if to sneer, and began to upend Erin’s life entirely.
“My condition is only one,” he said, voice like a caress. “Until the Night Demon dies, every other day you must give me as much blood as I desire.”
“Do I begin giving the blood today?” she asked, calm but hollow, her words like a measured blade.
It was a proposal terrifying in its sweetness.
***
Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his hand and laid it over hers, pressing against the grip that sought his life.
It was as though the very hand of death, cold and pitiless, guided hers, leading her gently—courteously—down the path of damnation.
His breath came shallow and ragged, yet his tone was tender, coaxing, almost seductive as he whispered, “This is how you must do it to kill me.”
It was the devil’s own temptation, a demon urging her to hasten her own ruin.
Too beautiful to be called a monster. Yet to be enchanted by that beauty was to consign everything around it to carnage.
Erin had risen to the rank of captain of the paladins with a single, lifelong vow: she would kill that thing. One day, strange phenomena—presumed to be the work of a demon lord—began to occur.
When the chance for vengeance finally arrived, she found herself paralyzed by the demon’s overwhelming power, swallowed by despair because she could do nothing. It was then that Gabriel—the silver demon—appeared as if to sneer, and began to upend Erin’s life entirely.
“My condition is only one,” he said, voice like a caress. “Until the Night Demon dies, every other day you must give me as much blood as I desire.”
“Do I begin giving the blood today?” she asked, calm but hollow, her words like a measured blade.
It was a proposal terrifying in its sweetness.
***
Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his hand and laid it over hers, pressing against the grip that sought his life.
It was as though the very hand of death, cold and pitiless, guided hers, leading her gently—courteously—down the path of damnation.
His breath came shallow and ragged, yet his tone was tender, coaxing, almost seductive as he whispered, “This is how you must do it to kill me.”
It was the devil’s own temptation, a demon urging her to hasten her own ruin.
