Chapter 20

Unlike the entrance hallway and front room, the rest of Sidney’s house looks normal. On the way to the kitchen we pass a cozy room with a fireplace, a maroon rug, two perpendicular couches, a mahogany table, and a golden chandelier. Next, we pass through a narrow hallway lined with windows providing a picturesque view of the surrounding environment. Then the house shifts into a carpeted area with white walls, a pool table, an elegant dinner table with flowers on top of it, and a trophy bear head hanging above another fireplace. Just beyond that room is the kitchen. The kitchen has a white tile floor, cabinets tanned the natural color of wood, a four-eye stovetop above the oven, and a sink. There’s also a small kitchen table with four chairs underneath it. Moreover, the kitchen is accented with the relaxing smell of fresh pine. Sidney invites me to take a seat at the small table. I sit down impressed at how the entire kitchen is sparkling clean.

“Do you have maids here or do you live alone?”

“I live alone here with my daughter Jessica.”

Ah yes, Jessica, the kidnapped little girl. I cannot leave without freeing her. I’m sure that it will break Sidney’s heart to be snapped out of her mother-daughter fantasy, but it has to be done. Regardless of how lonely she is, she cannot keep somebody else’s child. While I consider the best way to approach the subject with her, Sidney sifts through the contents in one of the cabinets. “What kind of tea would you like?”

“By any chance, do you have cinnamon tea?”

“Most certainly.”

“I do enjoy a good cup of cinnamon tea with two scoops of sugar.”

“I prefer my tea with sugar as well.”

Sidney sprinkles some cinnamon tealeaves into a teapot filled with water. She then places it on the stovetop and turns the temperature to medium heat. “The tea should be ready in ten minutes.”

“That will be fine.”

Since entering the kitchen, I’ve kept a close eye on Sidney’s every move. She looks overjoyed and perfectly natural serving a guest here in her meticulously clean kitchen, and even though she speaks with a demonic-sounding voice and is robed with clothes as black as darkness itself, she somehow fails to play the part of a very convincing death mage. While I ponder her contrasting characteristics, she comes to the table and sits down in front of me smiling happily. “I’m sorry. What did you say your name was?”

“Souladonis.”

“Tell me Lord Souladonis. How do you know my sister?”

“When I was a kid, I went to Winterspring Academy. She and I were classmates.”

“Ah, how nice.”

Sidney politely looks me in the eyes as I speak. I can tell that I have her full attention and that she’s genuinely happy to be speaking with me. Given her unexpectedly friendly demeanor, I’m starting to question whether or not she’s even a death mage at all. I figure I might as well ask. “Sidney, are you a death mage?”

“I’m a Vampire.” She retains her eye contact (and her smile).

“What’s that?”

“A Vampire is what you get when a Witch class mage is transformed by Death Magic. That’s why I can cast Death Magic spells, turn into a bat, and…”

“And?”

She leans in close to me, locking eyes. “I can suck out your blood.”

“Really?”

She falls back into her chair casually. “No, not really. It just looks like that. It’s called the ‘Suck Blood’ spell. What it actually does is drain a person’s life energy out of his body. It comes out looking like a red mist, which the Vampire consumes through her mouth. It really does look a lot like drinking a person’s blood right out of his body. Of course, it can be done with mana too, but mana is blue and doesn’t look like blood at all.”

I cross my arms confused about a certain matter. “Sidney, if you can do all of that, then why didn’t you use Death Magic on me while we were fighting?”

“I find it to be distasteful. I hate using it.”

“You don’t sound like a very good death mage.”

Somberly, Sidney sinks into her chair. “I’m not. I got kicked out of the group.”

I raise my left brow at the absurdity of someone being deemed unworthy to be amongst thieves, murderers, and the vilest scoundrels that society has to offer. “How in the world did you get kicked out of a death mage group?”

Sidney sighs sadly. “It went well at first. They were happy to have me because I’m rich and I have a lot of magic power. I even became an Apostate, which is a master-level death mage. But things changed after that. They wanted me to kill someone, but I’m not a killer.”

Interesting. I rest my chin on my fist. “You were going to kill me.”

“That was a lie. I just like to scare people. Didn’t you notice the creepy mist that I added to the front room for effect? What I was actually going to do was drain your mana until you passed out. You would have awoken in my dungeon with the rest of the people who came here trying to hunt me down.”

“You mean, you didn’t kill the inquisitors who came here?”

“No.”

I liven up with hopefulness. “I had a servant. She was captured by one of the armored statues in the entrance hall. Is she alive as well?”

Intrigued, Sidney leans her upper body towards me. “Wait? Somebody fell for the armored statue trick?”

“Yes my servant Katherine.”

“Well then she’s in the dungeon with the others. But seriously, I can’t believe that worked! That never works!”

“Don’t rub it in Sidney.”

Sidney begins laughing deeply from her stomach. And although her voice is terrifying, there’s something about her face that is innocent and childlike. It turns out that my first haunch about Sidney had been the right one. She’s a total sweetheart. I think that now is as good a time as any to bring up the real issue. “Sidney, you’re a nice girl. Why are you doing bad things like becoming a death mage and kidnapping a little girl?”

Sidney jerks in her chair and finally her smile fades. “I met a man: a Vampire lord. He was the one who convinced me that if I joined the death mages, I wouldn’t be lonely anymore. He and the others never truly accepted me though. They just wanted my money and power. Shortly after they made me leave, I realized that what I really need to be happy isn’t friends; it’s a family. So I found a girl to be my daughter. Now I just need a husband. Speaking of which Souladonis, you seem like a nice boy. Are you married?”

Right, well, this is not the direction that I wanted this conversation to take. “Listen Sidney. You can’t just live up here isolated with a kidnapped girl forever. Eventually an entire army of inquisitors will come for you. Your only real option is to surrender peacefully. Ask the inquisitors to evoke the Rite of Penance, and then you’ll be able to rejoin society. After that you can find a husband, have your own children, and finally be happy. Please Sidney, listen to reason.”

“Okay.”

“Really? Just like that?”

“Yes, you’re right. That’s what I really want anyway. But before I turn myself in to the inquisitors, I need a hug. Could you help me out?”

“Sure,” I answer rising from the table. Sidney also stands from her chair. We then move out into the open space of the kitchen floor. After that, I wrap my arms around Sidney in a friendly embrace. She looks longingly into my purple eyes and says, “Souladonis stay with me forever.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t,” I answer honestly.

“I wasn’t asking.”

Suddenly, she kisses me on the lips. I try to pull away from her, but she holds me in her arms as tightly as she can. While I struggle, my eyes begin to cloud with a black darkness. Before I’m able to escape her, the darkness completely overshadows my eyes.