"Screw you to Hel, murderess!" [Caster] fire seared out with Corazón''s red voice.


    The white-frocked witch moved her head at the veryst second, so much that it gave Israfel pause; ordinary witches weren''t that fast. Even a Master Magess of Corynthia had to be well equipped with [Dark Vice] to store up that much mana in their core for such vampiric speed abilities. Cora''s angry ball of fire went past Constance''s head.


    It whizzed, crashing with a jolt into the ss walls south of the hotel suite.


    It shattered on impact. Shards rained down hard and heavily. With the force of an exploding st, the merge of cosmic fire with the sspane rattled the evergreen floors in the room. The furniture jumped and the indic painting over the brass mantle hit the ground. It spoke plenty about the sheer packing force behind Cora''s fireball.


    "Duck!"


    Rafel dived for Cora and Rosa, taking them both with him to the damask rug as more of the wall exploded inward. The shower of ss pelted the air like crystal bullets. He covered them with his body as the rain scattered fragments in the air. It was like someone had taken a rifle, cocked and was firing away.


    The heat from the energy st did more damage to the suite that the actual fireball, and Rafel felt the ends of the fine rug curl up and melt.


    A lightning charge and ss was a violent thing.


    Rafel stayed like that over both girls with his warm bulk, shielding them as he waited for the fuel behind the fireball to fizzle out and the scorching heat dissipate. Sweat gathered at his brows. Dr. Blood had taught this very thing: how the emotions of a Spellcaster could act as propane to the potency of their magic.


    Any mundane me would''ve gone out by now. But not when it was Cora casting it. He whispered down to her under him. "Corazón dear, I admire your heart to take out this blood witch, but can we tone it down a notch. Else you''ll burn us with her. Okay?"


    Cora moaned beneath him. It was enough for him.


    The streaming blue mesing off the ss shards finally cooled down and Rafel expertly rolled off the girls. He looked to the spot in front of the dead firece where the Countess had once sat; it was mostly soot. The armchair had been razed to ash. Rafel smiled darkly to himself.


    ''That''s definitely gonnae out of her tab.''


    Constance was gone from the spot before the fireball hit. As he sprang to his feet, Rafel found the blood witch all the way on the other side of the room. Safe away, from the barrage of bullets and Cora''s hands itching to strangle her. The Countess stepped out across the burned living area. Her tall heels chinked on the shards of ss as she tsked and moved into the light.


    "Look what you hotheads have done to my suite. I payed something of a fortune for this room. Do you really wanna kill me that bad, girlie?"


    Constance''s eyes were clear on Cora.


    "If you do, then you shouldn''t miss next time. You bunch have a lot to learn about the world out there. A miss like this could see you into the afterlife. But now, you just amuse me. I think I''ll indulge you younglings a bit. But first, you should apologize for soiling my favorite one-piece."


    To his bamboozlement, Rafel watched as the Countess of Av turned around, twiling in her regal ivory gown to show the blotches of ash on the Fontaine silk. The lower hem was burned up. And slits ran in the material where the ss had pierced and ripped through. The woman had a few cuts he could see on her thighs.


    But while he watched, those cuts sewed together and healed perfectly back to a milkshake white.


    "She has a healing ability," Rosa whispered to the others; both girls too had risen off the floors, "but I see no fangs. She is no vampire. How is it possible her blood possesses this trait?"


    "I do not know." Rafel admitted. "I''ve not encountered much witches but the ones I have seen do not run fast as Hermes or heal their own flesh—at least not without visible enchantment. My guess is she has a charm from her coven Matriarch, Hecate."


    "Or?" Cora put forward.


    ". . .or she''s just that strong," finished Rafel.


    Constance was stalking them now. Her tongue ran along her splendidly white dentition. She licked her incisors, eyeing Rafel. She said, "you are quite the stud, Apollyon. I think once I''m done with the little girls, I''ll keep you. Just like the werewolves in myboratory.


    I shall study you. Perhaps, I shall fuck you too. But enough talk now. It''s time you kids learn witching the hard way."


    Constance''s green eyes moved in their sockets, and the hanging small chandelier above Rafel''s head dropped from the ceiling. It plummeted with speed for his head. Rafel dodged, shifting his feet from the spot. The sparklingmps crashed into the floor, right where he stood a minute ago.


    Constance raised her hands again, summoning all the candbras in the room to her with her mind.


    The sconces formed a pattern around her and themps floated in the air about her body. She folded her palms and held. And the candlesticks hovered in the room. Their golden rods stretched forward, and took the shape of blunt daggers. But with enough force, even a candlestick could pierce the heart. And momentum the fucking witch had!


    "She''s gonna loose!" Rosa warned her friends, already taking a crouch on the floor to duck from theing ught.


    Rafel knew the second Constance opened her fingers,unching the candbras into the air, fast as darts for their bodies. The three of them avoided the damage on their own terms: Cora pulled on her ghost ability, taking her [Luminary Form]—the darts went through her. She had be intangible. Visible but not physical.


    Rosa blocked all the bulleting shards that came her way with a shield of pure, dense shadow. The thick darkness swallowed the metal arrows in its abyssal nimbus.


    Rafel levitated into the air. And the candbrasunched at him passed under, whizzing hard past and sticking into the wall behind. He rose in the air, dark crimson wings sprouting out his back. His head just about touched the room''s ceiling as he watched the Countess expend her mana in sending more objects their way.


    The flower vase by the corner.


    Therger pieces of the torn ss wall.


    The broken frame of the beach painting.


    Cutlery from her untouched dinner.


    Anything that could lift in the air. Everything.


    The room vibrated with the force to which she tore apart the ce, seeking more things to lunge at them with her mind. Rafel was everywhere. A red blur. His fiery wings guided him away from her reach before any of her projectiles could hit.


    Bright red feathers spun in the air as he shed here and there, flying to scoop Cora into his arms when the witch Countess lunged the great Grandfather clock at her head.


    Rafel lifted back up, just as the ornate timepiece crashed through that space of the room''s sted door into the hallway.


    The scattering sound echoed hollowly.


    Rafel dropped Cora when Constance lowered her hands to catch her breath. The objects she had floating and ready tounch hit the lime floors. Rosa dropped her [Umbrae Shield] and rose from her kneeling position to stand beside Rafel, on his other side. The three of them watched Constance flex her fingers.


    Cool tropical wind blew in from thepletely destroyed south wall of the suite. Beyond that edge where the reinforced ss had been, it was a dead drop to the concrete streets below.


    Constance was breathing steadily.


    "We''ve got mere seconds before she recuperates and attacks again," said Rosa, "whatever we must do, we must do it now."


    Rafel''s wormwood eyes dove for a quick nce at their pretty, immactely dressed adversary. She blew him a kiss under her breath. He ignored it. Under the fa?ade of a skilled summoner, he could tell Constance felt it: the price of using that much sanguine interface to levitate objects. Telekinesis was a bitch that way. It fed, like a [Nether Parasite], off its host''s.


    . .everything.


    The Countess might need a blood transfusion after this fight. Only she wouldn''t survive to hook a drip. Rafel turned back to the girls. He spoke his n.


    "I''ve an idea: we use her ability to heal against her. She spends a considerable amount of time healing her body, and like she said, a second is enough to send you into the afterlife. This time, it will be her. There can be no room for error. We wound her, hard and fast, that she can''t heal quickly enough. Not enough to fight us at the same time.


    Healing herself will be the distraction. And those seconds will make all the difference."


    Cora and Rosa were both smiling already. Cora said, "I like it."


    "Tell us our parts." Rosa asked of him.


    Rafel returned their smile; he could already see the victory in the beautiful faces of the girls. And then he gave forth hismands. "Corazón, summon a Blood Poisoning st and hit her with it. Rosa, spellcast the suite by dropping the room temperature below subzero levels. That way, her blood cools further and is harder to manipte. I''ll strike her down with this—"


    Rafel''s right armnterned his [Titan fist] as he pulled from his Hel pocket dimension a purple broadsword. He cleared the mighty weapon in the air. It shed down a great arc, leaving molecules of the entering wind colder than before.


    "Alright. Go." Rafel instructed.


    "DARK ARTS! BLAST OF MAGVATH."


    "MARINE ARTS! OCEANIC FREEZE."


    Cora and Rosa summoned at the same time.


    The Countess saw iting and grabbed off the nearest shard of broken ss. She tore at her own wrist and as the blood pooled, she stretched out her hand and released the stream of liquid, viscous red. It formed into the shape of a vine with a sharp, ded end. Rosa had never seen blood do that before, but she refused to be distracted.


    This solid blood dagger ran out of Constance''s open wrist, aiming for her throat. But at five inches from her face, the blood froze over.


    "What the fuck!" The blood witch frowned.


    "It''s called water magic, bitch!" Rosa whipped the frozen blood knife and the rope of simr essence extending out to connect to Constance''s wrist. The Countess shrieked as the solid blood broke into fragments, falling to the floor.


    "My hand! You FUCKING CUNTS!" she wailed.


    Just then, Cora''s poison st hit her and she held in ce abruptly. Immobilized. Rafel watched her lips tremble as the dark, blood witch struggled to move. All the blood coursing through her body now being filled with the venom of a Malignant spider. The veins under her skin showed in livid purple. Her skin began to bloat up.


    White foam leaked out her convulsing lips. And blood ran down the corners of her eyes.


    Constance talked out the sides of her mouth that wasn''t stroked. "Uuufft. . .w-what the f-fuck did you do to me?"


    "Drop her to her knees!" Rafel boomed.


    Gently, by the [Rare] art of water bending the humors, Rosapelled the Countess of Av to kneel on the floors. The shards of ss drew blood from her skin. It stained the edges of her white gown. Rafel stomped for her with his macabre and purple me-throwing broadsword hooked up his right shoulder. He grabbed onto the blood witch''s mass of white hair and lifted her eyes up to his.


    Constance shivered before his demonic eyes.


    "I would run you through myself—right fucking now," Rafel said, "but you owe a life to my friend here." He stepped back and motioned for Cora toe forward: "she''s all yours."


    Corazón took the broadsword Rafel offered. She could''ve used her smaller dagger strapped to her hip, but she wanted it to hurt like hell. The witch bitch didn''t deserve a kind death. And so Cora took up Rafel''s legendary weapon. She had to hold the broadsword with both hands to lift it up. It just about weighed as much as she did.


    Cora drew back her hands, grasping the studded hilt firmly.


    "This is for Sk."


    She rammed the great sword all the way into Constance''s body. It drove in deeply, to the hilt. The Countess grasped to the deadly de of the sword inside her. Right in her belly. She coughed up blood. But Cora wasn''t done.


    She drew out the broadsword and stabbed Constance again.


    "This is for my friends at the academy."


    Cora was crying now. Shs didn''t even flinch at the fountain of blood coursing out through the stab wounds and soaking the Countess''s immacte dress a tragic crimson. Cora pulled out again and drove in for the third time. "And this is for me, you fucking madwoman. For taking my girlfriend from me. And for the hurt you''re putting me through.


    Fuck you, YOUR FUCKING LADYSHIP!"


    Rosa put a hand on her shoulder. Cora pulled away, leaving the mighty sword in Constance''s belly as she went in to hug Rafel. He embraced both Cora and Rosa in his enfolding masculinity. The Countess''s breath wasing in spurts. She knelt in her own blood pool, purple veins like branches of bramble in her pale skin, night air flooding into her torn-apart hotel room.


    And Rafel could hear the sound of her heartbeat slowing.


    Suddenly, before their eyes the woman, bleeding out, was engulfed into a one-way portal.


    The origin remained unknown as the portal vanished before Rafel could react. Constance''s bloodied and poisoned body was swallowed whole. Disappeared. Escaped. Gone.


    Cora raised skeptical eyes up to Rafel.


    "Where did she go? You think she''s dead?"


    "I don''t know, love," he said, "but she got the message."


    Was he sorry for all but assassinating the ruling Countess of Av D''aqua?


    FUCK NO. Sorry, not sorry. The one who had saved her—her partner he was guessing—could pick up the pieces of her. Whomever the shit that was. All Rafel cared about now was a good long soak to wash away the blood. And perhaps a soft warm body, to sink into.