Page 67 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

Tabitha chortled with dark laughter; the sound was more evil than good. "Lies? What lies when I speak truth? It is you who is wrong. It is you who cannot see that we are already here, and now I have exposed you for what you truly are, you heinous bitch!"

And then, as fast as a cobra launching a strike, Tabitha careened forward with her small lettering knife in hand and aimed for the jugular of Alexis. The vampire was so shocked, she barely registered the move, and maybe the attack would have stuck if not for Kane quickly moving between them. A garbled shout escaped him as the blade became lodged in his shoulder, piercing as deep as the bone.

Tabitha faltered at the sight of her little stiletto blade sticking out from Kane's shoulder area. Blood seeped from the wound, and with gnashing teeth, he deftly ripped the blade from him and threw it to the ground.

"God damn it, Tabitha! Enough with this! You have no proof of your claims. I believe she did as she says, and your senses are wrong!" Kane shouted.

Tabitha bared her teeth at him. "Is…that…so…werewolf?"

Tabitha laid her hands towards the earth at her feet, which suddenly began to quake thunderously around them.

"If I'm so wrong about that, then how am I wrong about the castle, Kánnérd Farkas?"

Energy like white smoke began to swirl around her, starting at her feet and spiraling upward until it encased her in a cloud. Those unnatural green eyes were like emerald stones from an ancient world inside her what remained of the whites of her eyes, which had grown drastically smaller. Kane tried to reach for her, to grab her and break this awful spell from around her, yet the swirling vortex zapped him with an electrical charge that made him yelp and jerk back immediately.

Then that color began to turn multi-hued, a rainbow of colors that billowed out from her in an ever-expanding circle until Kane and the others had to step back to keep from being electrified by its presence.

"I told you,” the snake-like words hissed from between Tabitha's pallid lips. "We are already inside the castle, Kánnérd Farkas. Thisss, visage you see around you is but the illusssion."

She was utterly mad, he thought, and a feeling of abject loss overcame him with grief at what he'd lost within her. The sweet, diabolically clever journalist who'd go deep undercover for a ripe story to placate the masses on what the rich and famous were doing in various societies had been transformed into a wretchedly evil being with fantastically destructive powers.

There was no castle here. Nothing but a near off village with a surrounding forest that was the prettiest thing he'd seen since entering Hell realm. Yet, no sooner had he thought it, did the environment warble around him, as if a black vice gripped the world and shifted it into something else entirely.

The earth shook hard and he fell to his knees on a shout of pain as his burns and wounds from the dragon re-opened and grounded him to a halt.

Green smoke began to glow around her, or from within her, he could not tell, but perhaps they were not separate after all. Like that of the Aurora Borealis produced from the Northern Lights, Tabitha glowed so brightly Kane had to squint to see her sunken cheeks through the cloud of magic gathered around her. Then, her lips began to chant, words he could not grasp, in a language he could not fathom, and a golden glittery glow began to alight her lips as if she'd painted them the color gold.

All around them sparkles of gold dust began to rain from the sky and the image of the world around him bounced up and down like an old film reel experiencing static, distorting reality or perhaps making the real one appear.

And then, suddenly, Tabitha vanished before his very eyes.

Kane reached for where she'd been instantaneously, the roar of her name lodged in his throat. "Tabitha!"

But, his hand passed through ether of white, gold, and supernatural green hues, touching nothing more than a wispy cloud from where she'd just stood.

She was gone, and apparently they had already uncovered the Castle of Illusions.

PART THREE

27

The world swam before Tabitha's eyes in streams of gold and white. Like rivulets of wavelengths creating tendrils through the air, running vertical, horizontal, every which way, she could see patterns before her as if in a digital virtual reality and made out patterns of walls that distorted like water manipulated at the touch once her fingers grazed the surface. The wall she stroked bobbed and billowed inward before flowing outward like a leaf dropped upon clear water.

The color gold painted everything for as far as she could discern, yet the patterns sparkled and glimmered in those glittery wavelengths both seeming extraordinary and unreal, yet hyper realistic at the same time. The distortion passed an eerie sense through her that made her more alert than usual, yet any timidness she felt was far surpassed by a brilliant valor that guided her like a sweeping hand. Tabitha no longer stood in the greenery of a reclusive town in the middle of Hell realm, but instead inside a massive castle made up of magic and energy the likes of which she could scarcely comprehend. Yet, without any knowing of why, only know it was true, she knew exactly where to turn as her feet guided her along a shimmery gold path, the light so bright her eyes pinched to diminish its ravishing luminosity.

Gone was the tornado of trouble in the visage of her newfound romantic partner Kánnérd Gunner Farkas, and gone too were his comrades, the brother and sister vampire twins with more secrets than truth. She stood alone in a strange world and had only her own wits to guide her.

This internal guidance urged her forward, forbidding her from going in this or that direction, and instead she found herself moving toward a specific destination—one she knew would change her entire existence. She grazed her fingertips against walls that were more energy than physical substance. Shrewish figures in various artwork pieces and marbled statues looked back at her with knowing, watchful gazes as though the art was truly alive or sentient as she glided through the corridor after corridor, knowing that which she sought without really understanding any at all. She almost wondered if they whispered about her or foretold of her incoming.

The Castle of Illusions was a misnomer, she thought as her bare feet pressed softly against a warm golden floor that turned translucent and shone brighter with each delicate press of her feet. Nothing seemed as it were. Based off of logic, she knew she should still be up above where she'd just stood, yet for some reason that she feltrather than understood, she knew she was in a subterranean dimension—some other realm. This wasn't just a castle, per se, but a whole other world; one made of infinite magic or some ethereal extraordinary means that she couldn't begin to explain.

She came upon a doorway. Arched with a point at the top, illuminated swirls and designs were etched and glowing from inside the stone. A search for a handle proved useless, and she was left to wonder how to get in. That same calling within her that had led her to this precipice told her that what she needed from this strange place was inside this door. All she needed was the key.

28

Above earth amongst a pack of werewolves a sudden brew of darkness menaced the residence of Alpha Zeke's community. Family's parted forth from their homes while smoke still fumed from the chimney and meals were left to burn on the stove. Children were hidden behind parent's legs in a protective gesture as an unnatural darkness descended upon the city. A sound like curling waves picking up momentum against a shoreline rushed through with the wind, bringing with it the fetid stench of decay and death.

A single soldier outside of the Alpha's hut, a pointed tent in which the mad werewolf chose to live inside, stared at the ominous cloud cover with rising suspicion.

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