Lalika Undone

I allowed myself to be lost in that gaze for a moment too long. A blur of motion at the edge of my vision—a branch, thick as a woman's arm, whipping toward us with murderous speed. But to my newly awakened senses, it was a lazy, languid thing. With a grace that was not my own, I swept Xiao Ru into my arms and sidestepped the attack with an infinity to spare.

The blood, it seemed, did not merely sustain. It amplified. Had something new awakened within me? I paused, the world around me a slow, deliberate calligraphy of pain, each movement a perfect, brutal stroke. The writhing branches of the forest seemed to move as if through thick water. I reached for my pistol. A faint, ethereal teal glow now emanated from the weapon's frame upon my touch.

Without a second thought, I raised the glowing weapon and loosed its thunder upon the woods.

The blast was a blinding, silent lance of pure, cerulean energy that tore through the night like a railgun. It… it unmade everything in its path, leaving a smoking gash of a scar upon the forest.

From the deep woods, a terrible, drawn-out, writhing scream—the sound of a thousand voices twisted into one—tore through the air as the living trees convulsed and retracted their violating limbs.

The terrible scream of the wounded forest faded into a ringing silence. I let out a slow breath, the immense power thrumming through my veins now a quiet, steady hum. I turned to Xiao Ru, a faint, genuine smile touching my lips. She stood there, awestruck, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and wonder, the collar of her white kosode still pulled aside in a state of disarray.

"You're welcome," came Ashley's dry, rasping voice from afar, as the last of the withered vines pinning her crumbled to dust.

My smile faded as my gaze drifted past Xiao Ru, past her single tail that was now wagging with a frenetic, relieved energy. And in the corner of my eye, I saw her. Lalika. Unscathed and untouched.

The warmth in my veins from Xiao Ru's blood turned to ice. The detective's suspicion and the vampire's predatory instinct merged into a single, cold point of focus. My face hardened, my brows furrowing into a low scowl. I did not think. I simply moved. In the space between one heartbeat and the next, I crossed the clearing, a blur of motion so frighteningly fast that the world seemed to smear around me.

Neither Ashley nor Xiao Ru had time to react before Lalika's face was slammed back against a tree, my hand clamped around its throat. A cry of pure, panicked disbelief tore from Xiao Ru's lips. "Mei-Ling!"

Ashley, rubbing the thorn marks on her neck with a wince, came to stand beside the frenzied fox. "I was afraid of this," she remarked, her voice a low cough. "Blood mania. It can be… unpredictable. This may be a whole new battle for us."

"What are you doing?!" Xiao Ru cried again, rushing to my side. She grabbed the arm that pinned her supposed sister, her own hands surprisingly strong as she tried to pull me away, her face pleading terror.

I looked from Xiao Ru's delirious, tear-streaked face to the impassive one of the creature in my grasp, and then back again. I sighed, a sound of weary patience, and with my free hand, gently patted Xiao Ru's head. She calmed, but only slightly, her expression still one of wounded confusion.

"Xiao Ru," I said, my voice quiet but imbued with an absolute, unshakeable certainty. "This is not your sister."

And as the words were spoken, the form in my grasp began to contort. The illusion of the light-haired fox girl wavered and dissolved like smoke. The limbs elongated and twisted, the skin taking on the texture of green, woven vines. A great, pink blossom erupted from the top of its head. In my hand was no longer Lalika, but a creature of the woods, a silent, plant-like Spriggan with wide, black, emotionless eyes.

A choked, disbelieving gasp escaped Xiao Ru's lips. She recoiled as if struck, her hand flying to her mouth. "No… no, it cannot be…" she stammered, stumbling backward. She would have fallen, had Ashley not shot out an arm to steady her. The two of them, the kitsune and the vampire, stood side-by-side, their faces of a shared, confused turmoil.

The Spriggan, free from my grasp, did not recoil. A thin, needle-sharp tendril shot from its wrist, aiming for the soft flesh of my arm. I twisted away, the speed granted by Xiao Ru's blood still lingering, and brought the butt of my pistol down upon the back of its floral head with a sickening, wet crunch. A great crater appeared in the vine-like flesh.

But before I could blink, a dozen smaller tendrils erupted from its body, latching onto my arm. I felt a sharp, piercing sensation and a horrid, draining cold as my own life's blood was siphoned from me. As I watched in horror, the crater in its head sealed itself, the flesh re-knitting, fueled by my stolen vitality.

In a surge of panicked revulsion, I kicked out, my loafer shattering the feeding tendrils into a fine, green dust. I clutched my wounded arm, a wave of weakness washing over me. My reflexes, once supernaturally sharp, now felt sluggish. It seemed, in all likelihood, I had been poisoned in addition to the blood loss. I barely managed to dodge another whip-like assault from the creature.

Breathing heavily, I raised my pistol, its faint teal glow now sputtering, and fired directly into its face. The magical blast blew its floral head clean from its stalk-like neck.

The body fell to the ground, writhing and wiggling in a grotesque dance. We watched wearily, panting, hoping it was the end.

I drew a single, fractured breath, and in that brief lacuna of my will, the ground beneath me offered up a new and terrible botany. A thick, thorny tendril passed through my leg, a sudden, sharp, and unwelcome marriage between my flesh and the soil. The pain was a new, high-pitched colour that blotted out the world, and I collapsed beneath its brilliance.

Xiao Ru's face, glimpsed from the corner of half-lidded eye, was a portrait of pure mortification. Her gaze darted to her bow, lying uselessly on the far side of the clearing. She took a stumbling step toward it, but another tendril shot up from the ground, blocking her path. Her desperate eyes then met Ashley's.

No words were needed. In that shared look of desperation, a plan was forged.

Ashley let out a cry that was a bright and deliberate blossom of sound, offering herself as the more tempting question. As the subterranean limbs recalibrated their hunger toward the higher, louder, more declarative pulse of her life, Xiao Ru began her own retreat—a fluttering, moth-like trajectory toward the treeline, an artful performance of self-preservation.

The headless, writhing thing on the ground slowly rose, its movements becoming less spastic, more deliberate. A new 'head,' a wet, unfurling bud, began to form at the top of its neck. A voice, like the grinding of wet leaves and snapping twigs, issued from it.

"Yesss…" it rasped, its tendrils slowly closing in on my crippled form. "Your friends abandon you to your fate. Soon, you will be but soil and seed… part of the forest. And when you have nourished us… I will find the little fox… and I will eat… her… alive… Ahahahaha…"

The creature’s foul laughter echoed in my mind as I fought against its crushing tendrils. But the vitality I had stolen was fading, the poison from its earlier wound a sluggish venom in my very blood. My pistol slipped from my nerveless fingers and clattered to the moss. A faintness washed over me, the edges of my vision turning a dark, hazy grey. As the newly-formed, monstrous flower-head loomed over me, its petals opening to reveal a maw of thorns, I felt a strange sense of resignation—a brief failure in the architecture of my resolve. All I could do was produce a low hum, the fossilized remains of a melody my mother had pressed into the soft clay of my childhood.

And then, a flash of blue and white. Xiao Ru, in all her dauntless fury, came rolling out from the shadows behind the creature. She rose to one knee, her luminous bow already drawn. One after another, a volley of arrows, each wreathed in a brilliant, golden flame, flew from her bowstring. They struck the Spriggan with a series of hissing reports. The creature gave a final, manic shriek as the enchanted fire took hold, enveloping its entire form in a cleansing, merciless inferno.

As the creature was reduced to glowing embers, Xiao Ru wiped a bead of sweat from her brow and rushed to my side. I had fallen, my limbs trembling with a violent, uncontrollable shake. She gathered me into her arms, a fierce and protective hug that took me by surprise, though my mind was a thick and confusing fog.

"I am sorry," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "I am so sorry I did not trust you."

My head throbbed in a dull, painful rhythm, and the sounds of the forest, her voice, all of it began to feel distant, the world growing dull and muted. She pulled back, her eyes wide with a new horror. "The thorns… you are poisoned!" She bit her bottom lip, a look of desperate resolve on her face, before thrusting her forearm before my face. "You must," she said, her voice pleaing. "It is the only way to purge the poison. You have to bite me."

My own will was a distant, fading thing. I could only obey the command, the terror in her eyes.I pressed my teeth to the soft flesh of her arm, and a communion was established. A sudden, blossoming warmth, like a sun rising inside my own chest, dissolved the brittle, crystalline structure of the poison. The world, which had been a muffled and grey affair, suddenly snapped into a state of impossible, crystalline focus.

I looked up, the taste of her still on my lips, and saw her face, flushed a deep cherry red, her head turned away in embarrassed vulnerability. I retracted my fangs, a strange and unfamiliar tenderness welling within me. I reached up and cupped her chin in my hand, gently turning her to face me.

We stared at one another, the world seeming to fall away. Our breaths were slow and shallow, our eyes locked in communion. I saw a universe of trust and unspoken things in her pretty gaze. Slowly, as if drawn by some invisible thread, we began to edge closer…

A spray of dirt and dead leaves erupted beside us as Ashley skidded to a halt, her chest heaving. The spell was broken.

"Ye gods," she gasped, leaning over with her hands on her knees. "I got turned around for a moment… thought I was lost." She coughed, straightening up and gesturing vaguely at the path of destruction I had carved earlier. "Luckily… your little light show left a rather obvious trail to follow…"

I could only sigh.