Music and festival noise celebrated life, but in Isaiah's ears, they warped into foreign rhythms—laughter, shrieks, and drums hammering out the heartbeat of the city. The air was saturated with smoke, moisture, and a scent that did not belong to the celebration, but to the shadows crawling through the crowd.
The human river churned, devouring space and movement, drowning the hunter's senses. Isaiah moved silently, following an invisible trail: the foul trace of Simei. But he found only echoes—folds in the crowd that hid the demon within the pagan atmosphere.
Simei blended into the people, appearing like just another fleeting human: short hair dyed an artificial blond, a mature face around forty, and blue eyes that failed to reflect the spectral power of his true existence. Demons were skilled at mimicking mankind.
Wrapped in the skin of an ordinary man, he watched the vampire with human eyes smothered by the unnatural flame burning behind his facade. His lips barely moved, yet the gesture was enough to guide Isaiah's gaze.There she was: Janab, fragile, shrunken before a bonfire whose orange glow couldn't chase away the cold gnawing at her.
The vampire had no clear reason to pursue a creature so abominable that it endangered his own existence, but demons were superior in many ways.
The demon smiled.
A freezing wind swept across the square—a whisper colder than the air itself. Janab felt the brush of a voice at her ear, though it came from no tangible body:
—Why are you alone? Why is no one with you? He found nothing of worth in you.
The words drove themselves into her chest. There was no lie in them—only the cruelty of truths twisted from the darkest root of her soul. Her reaction was immediate: a void yawning beneath her feet, the sensation of sinking into an abyss without end.
She tried to turn, to locate the source of the voice. Nothing. The air was clean, save for the invisible pressure crushing her chest. Simei had vanished, dissolving like smoke into the dimness.
Isaiah watched in silence, wading through the murky territory of memories the woman refused to relive for him.
—Because of hatred, evil has been summoned. —Simei's voice thundered across the sky without body or face, a rumble of laughter and judgment mingling with the smoke of the bonfires— Vampire, it is time to carry out your sentence.
No one could win in the devil's game of those who dwell in darkness. Simei existed only to open doors toward someone else's disaster.
She pressed her lips together, the tremor giving away her desperation. Her eyes, wet and clouded, fought to stay open—as if closing them would mean being devoured whole. With effort, she fixed her gaze on the flames dancing before her, seeking in their glow a way out, a trace of relief.
And then Isaiah's voice broke through—soft, deep, enveloping:
—The human mind is weak before the illusions of darkness. Yet I am completely real.
Isaiah's voice, velvety and low, struck her ears with unexpected sweetness—a false warmth amid the cold surrounding her. Her dark eyes finally met a figure that blackened her reality in an instant. This encounter was not a rescue, but a fatal sentence that split open an abyss in her thoughts and pierced her most fragile memories.