The Road to Dusk

As I walk to the throne room, my legs shake, if I don’t say the right thing the village is gone. While this castle may be small, we know that vampires live here and they’ve been threatening our village for some time. My husband was taken here, so I must bargain for his life no matter what. The door opens to a long hallway filled with a long ceiling mural, depicting vampire legends.

A regal looking vampire is sitting on a throne and says, “Well, this is a surprise. I didn’t expect anyone to come for this sad excuse of a man. Are you his wife?”

On his left I see my husband, beaten with his long ears being cut. With fear in my heart, I steal myself and say, “I am. Please release him.”

“Oh, and why should I? I learned a lot from him. If you really need him, we can make a deal.”

“No… don’t do it Lucrecia,” my husband screams.

“Vincent,” I say.

The vampire laughs, he sees this as a joke. He grabs Vincent on the hair to pull him up, exposing his neck. The vampire bites into his neck and starts to fully drain his blood. The weight of how dangerous this is hits me once again. It felt like a moment, but Vincent’s blood was fully drained and the vampire stabbed his heart with his rapier. Vincent’s lifeless body falls to the ground with an echoing thud.

“I hope this shows that you want to take this deal,” the vampire says, “Your husband told me about the hidden folks who are part human.”

I begin to shake as he walks closer to me. He pulls out a quill and a contract.

“So, you fulfill this contract and I won’t destroy your small insignificant village,” the vampire says, “ I won’t even tell anyone about those part humans, just to be nice.”

“O-okay.”

As I grab the quill, blood comes out of my fingers staining the feather, I sign the contract. The quill disappears, the contact wraps itself like a scroll and goes into the vampire's sleeve. He smiles, then says, “Excellent.”

“What do you want me to do?”

With a devilish smile he snaps his fingers and with magic summons a heart. The heart looks like it has been blackened with tar and the veins look as if they have been fossilized. However, there is a specific crest on the heart. Looking up, it is similar to the crest in the ceiling mural. A thought crawled into my mind, and it terrifies me to think it true. I then ask, “Is that heart, what I think it is?”

“Yes, this is Dracula's heart. Magic users go after these types of cursed hearts to increase their magic power. But why should I give our god’s heart to some lowly spellcaster. The true purpose of this heart is to revive him.”

“A-a monster god’s-”

“Don’t you dare call our god a monster, bitch!”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“Be glad I am deciding to be merciful to your miserable life. Considering that you will be the one to revive him.”

“Why?”

“Simple, there are some of us who want his heart to enhance their power. If I were the one to revive him. There will be those who will come after me and ruin the ceremony. So if I let a lowly halfling do it, the others won’t know.”

I realize Vincent’s warning, but I fully understand that we were in any position to refuse. I must think of a way to warn the village and potentially save everyone. I begin to panic as I begin to breathe heavily. I look at my fingers, and see my blood still there.

“The blood is insurance, a piece of my magic is there to track you. Don’t even think about warning your village. If you take one step in your village; we will feast on everyone and burn everything till nothing can grow on it. Do I make myself clear?”

“C-crystal.”

“Good. This bag has enough flesh and bones to help with his revival. Oh, and one more thing.” The vampire snaps his fingers and a woman rushes behind me putting her hand on my shoulder. “If you don’t summon Dracula in one week's time or anything suspicious occurs, my maid will kill you. She will follow you to the edges of the world, there is no escape. Now get out of here!”

With the bag and heart in hand I run out of the castle, tears breaking loose as the weight of everything that happened hits me. As I run, I trip over a tree root and the tears fall. I call out to Vincent, trying to wake up from this nightmare. As I try to seek comfort from his name, all that came from it is emptiness and longing.

I remember a rumor stating that at the edge of the world there is an abandoned house. That house is the subject of tragedy, where people go to disappear. I figured that if I have to summon Dracula, I will make it as inconvenient for him as possible. I pull a world map from my bag to point to the edge of the world. The tar heart beats as magic surrounds and blinds me. Once the magic disappears, I see the abandoned house. I feel light headed as I see the tar heart beat and blood spews out. The heart took some of my blood.

I walk inside stepping on the creaky wooden floors and they feel like they can break at any point. The house is in ruin; the windows have been shattered, suggesting thievery over the years, any decor and furniture that remains have been broken through age. Before I can settle, I hear hushed voices in the attic. I rush up with a dagger as the voices become louder and become more panicked. I reach the ladder and climb up into the attic, I see a bunny beastman and a male elf both pointing daggers at each other.

“Stay back, beast,” yells the male elf!

“Don’t you dare come closer fae,” yells the beastman.

“Why are you screaming,” I yell as I come in?

Now they point their daggers at me as well, in a defensive stance I too point my dagger at them. We breathe heavily, no one moves, all we can do is point blades at each other. I am scared, I am already doing something that can damn my soul and now there are two shady people. A loud bang came from downstairs and the three of us jumped because of the sound.

“So…truce,” I ask?

They nod and we slowly go down the ladder, I still feel fear since they can betray me at a moment's notice. We walk the creaking hall as we hear rushing footsteps coming up the stairs.

“What are you three doing,” yells a female dwarf!

“What are you doing,” the three of us yell!

“Can we please stop yelling and start talking,” a scared male satyr asks?

We calm down and start talking, and quickly realize that we all made a similar deal. Vale, the elf, is forced to revive the Fae king Finnvarra. Brain, the bunny beastman, is forced to revive the werewolf Lycaon. Helga, the female dwarf, is forced to revive the cherufe golem Pururaurca. Lastly, Yanis, the male satyr, is forced to revive the minotaur Asterion.

“So the cult of these monster gods force us peasants to summon their god,” I ask dumbfoundedly. When I got their confirmation, an idea came to mind.

“How about we try to summon them in one circle,” I ask?

“That could work,” Yanis says.

“Yes; their egos will not allow it and since their souls and runes have nowhere to go they would disappear,” Vale says excitedly.

Vale and Yanis start figuring out how to get the hearts, flesh, and symbols in the magic circle. As Helga comes to me to ask a question. “Do you know how to cook?”

“Yes I do.”

“Then we’re making every bean soup, specifically my family recipe.”

Everyone just stops, everyone knows what an every bean soup is. It is a simple soup to make, the spices and broth can be whatever but the beans must come from different parts of the world. Workers make it in order to have a large supply to last weeks. However, every bean soup is infamously bad. Every family has a recipe that claims to make the taste more tolerable. Everyone puts their bag of beans and soup fillings on the nearly broken table.

“Guess everyone was planning on soup, eh,” Helga says.

Brain then brings a small bag of beans that has the word ‘PINTO’. “I found this bag in the house’s basement,” Brain says, “It looks like a bean, so I think it could be a part of the soup.”

No one argues and the mysterious bag of beans is lumped with the ingredients. Vale and Yanis prepare how things will set up, Brain goes to the attic to clear things up, and Helga and I prepare the every bean soup. We start a small campfire outside the house and have a huge pot for the soup with all the ingredients on the side. As I help with the cooking, my mind hopes that Vincent will come home to hug me as I cook our meal. As much as I want that to happen, I know he is dead. My longing then turns to sadness, as the horrible memory of his death haunts me.

“Hey, Lucrecia. Are you okay,” Helga asks?

“My husband was killed by a vampire, and it was that vampire that sent me to revive Dracula.”

“I’m sorry. If it helps, I lost my kids when a spectral golem stole their souls. It gave me Pururaurca’s core to force me to resurrect it. I think everyone here has a similar story,” Helga says.

I tell her thank you, she just nods at me. It takes a full day in order for the food to be done cooking. We set everything up for dinner and served everyone the every bean soup. We eat it and we all say, “This is delicious.”

“This is the first time my recipe actually tastes good,” Helga says.

“I think this is the first time any every bean soup is ever good,” Yanis says.

“It needs some more spices, but other than that it’s good,” I say.

We all agree that the soup is amazing, Vale kept looking at the ‘PINTO’ bean bag. I agree because I’ve never heard of that bean before. In a situation like this, it is surprising to feel normal.

Nearly the whole week passes, and everything is set up. The attic was cleared out thanks to Yanis. The chalk circle was big enough to hold a pile of flesh and bones, the runes were drawn, including the ones that wanted their servants. We throw the cursed hearts into the pile of flesh and bones. We then touch the circle with the magic that was provided to us.

The circle activates and the world starts to shake. As expected, the runes don’t cooperate as we wait for their ego death to occur. I smile as we can kill the monster gods and end this nightmare. The circle becomes more unstable and in a moment an explosion happens. The floor broke and we went from the attic to the first floor.

I try to get up, the landing was rough, but I hear agonizing pain. I get up with everyone else and we see humans. For the first time, we see humans and the runes are going into them. They transform into monsters and then start to kill us one by one. The one who turned into a werewolf bites into my neck. As I bleed out, I hope I get to see Vincent once again.