DCMAGR | Chapter. 30: No One Is Right (Patreon)

The driver of the sleek car got off, the headlights pointing at the body of his victim. I wanted to check on Ash, but I had to use my aura for that. And I didn’t want to alert the panicked man any further. He looked nervously before his eyes made contact with mine.

“Y-You…” He pointed. “You saw?”

I tilted my head. “Ash dying? Yeah.”

The man hearing my nonchalant reply held his head and began to mutter incomprehensible things. His emotions were completely lost in despair, anger, sadness, regret among others. He turned back to me and shuffled for his back pocket, taking out his wallet and removing some cards from it.

“T-Take it, you didn’t see anything!” He shakily tried to hand it to me but I shook my head.

I shook my head. “I don’t need money, besides.” I looked at Ash down the road. “Shouldn’t you go check on her?”

The man paused and turned around to look at Ash. “B-But she’s clearly dead.”

“Maybe?” I asked with confusion. I mean, I knew for a fact I wouldn’t die from that. As painful as it would be. Ash dying from it? Unlikely in my opinion. “She should still be alive?”

The man swallowed and began to cautiously approach Ash⁠— or well, her corpse as he assumed. Her limbs were still twisted in all the wrong ways and from the little I could see, and she wasn’t moving.

The man leaned close, and then there was a loud creak followed by a terrified shriek coming from the man. Ash’s limbs began to snap in their correct places and she⁠— her emotions skyrocketed. She was pissed. It reminded me of the Underworld in all the wrong ways, pure unbridled desire to kill.

Ash began to get up, the blood on her face was more than obvious making the man panic further. He turned around and made a sprint for his car, only getting a frown from Ash. However, she was still just as angry.

“Wait!” I called Ash to stop her, but she shook her head.

“This is my problem to deal with Kat,” she coldly said. But I couldn’t help but pause feeling her hatred intensify.

“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” I called Ash out.

The door of the car closed, and the engine started once again in an attempt to get going. Ash finally finished standing up as the car drove past her. At that moment I couldn’t help but sigh in relief. So she wasn’t going to kill him. Ash turned around, her gaze glued onto the car, with a flick of her arm a familiar stick on her hand appeared.

“Wait, that is⁠—”

She pointed the wand at the car, and slammed it to the right. The car swerved straight into a building and crashed, smoke began to emerge from the front. And the driver⁠— his emotions were gone. I paused from the sudden development. She had killed that person over that?

It felt wrong… It was wrong.

The more I thought about it, the angrier it made me. She was no different from the beasts of the Underworld!

“You didn’t need to kill him!” I spat.

Ash held her head, blood staining her hand. “And let him kill me? No thanks.”

“You weren’t going to die from that!”

Ash rolled her eyes. “Easy for you to say.”

I grunted knowing it was impossible to argue with her and turned to the car. He died… Could I even do something about it? Right, his soul! Feeling a mix of dread and excitement I rushed over, ignoring whatever Ash tried to say when I began moving.

In a short few seconds I arrived at the car, the driver was limp but no visible injuries. I sighed and closed my eyes, extending my aura towards him and enveloping him. But after a few seconds I frowned.

I couldn’t find the thread. Nor was there a trace of his soul. It was as if it had just disappeared.

I didn’t know what to make of it. Was I too late? Had I done wrong? Where did I fail? The soul had vanished before I could do anything, or help it even. Did I have to kill someone myself to take their soul⁠— I interrupted myself. That wasn’t right, nor did I plan on killing other beings just for my testing.

Maybe next time, I just had to be quicker. Act faster. Perhaps be there when they just died or about to die. I shook my head feeling a certain sensation of loss. I didn’t know if I should’ve stopped Ash, since she was clearly hurt in the process.

If I was in her place, what would I have done?

A sigh helplessly left me. I had no clue what I would’ve done in Ash’s place. But I certainly wouldn’t have brushed it off either. I closed my eyes and decided to not think too hard about it.

Ash awaited for me with her arms crossed, the blood on her face now smeared away onto her onesie’s sleeve. The blood clots on her cheeks and forehead were more than evident. And the bloodstains throughout my onesie made me rethink things.

If Ash were normal. She would’ve died. And the man who had hit her, would’ve just ran away… He might’ve gotten away with killing her just because. I bit my finger. It seemed wrong.

I walked over to Ash, and didn’t say anything as I pulled my phone to call a taxi so we could just leave. Ash didn’t say anything in protest either, and she didn’t seem to want to talk, so things went rather smoothly.

Or as smooth as they could. The taxi driver was less than… compliant…

“You girls just wanna go to the center of the city?” He asked bewildered, his eyes turning between us and the car in the distance. “You both need a hospital!”

Upon hearing that, Ash clicked her tongue.

“To the center of the city.”

“I can’t do that missy, you’re clearly more injured than your friend.” The taxi driver protested, shaking his head. He started the car and pulled his phone. “You need medical attention, I’ll also call an ambulance.” He began to tap the screen, nine, one, on⁠—

Ash awkwardly shuffled as I stared at the man, and then a click entered both of our ears.

“Drive.” Ash coldly said, what I recognized as a pistol⁠—firearm was pointed at the taxi driver. His eyes instantly went wide.

“Okay, but⁠—

“No questions.” Ash whispered to the driver. His panic increased tenfold. At that moment I couldn’t help but sigh. I didn’t really have anything better to say anyway. It all felt wrong, but I trusted Ash in the sense of not going overboard. If I understood anything, was that; the less messy it was, the better.

◇ ◇ ◇

We got out of the taxi. Somewhere else. I was still upset, given how things had unfolded. Ash was doing a phone-call as the taxi drove away. She was complaining and talking about things I couldn’t understand. She also talked about the taxi and driver descriptions. After a few more seconds of talking and a grunt, she hung up the phone.

“Can you open a portal?” She asked me suddenly.

I paused. “Wait, why didn’t you ask me to open a portal back there?”

“I was too busy trying to not lose reason.” Ash rolled her eyes. Her reaction reminded me of how unjust the things that happened were.

“Lose reason? You killed the man!”

“So what?” Ash asked, gritting her teeth. “You think it doesn’t fucking hurt to get hit by a car going at top speed?”

“Well⁠— you could’ve handled it differently!”

“No I couldn’t.” Ash shook her head in annoyance. “Perhaps you would’ve done it differently, but I would not. Now open the portal.” She commanded but I simply scoffed.

“Open it yourself.” I said and crossed my arms.

Ash grunted. “Fine, I’ll open it this time.”

I raised a brow, curious on how other royals opened their portals. Ash pulled out the bone wand from earlier and rubbed it with blood, before grabbing it by its sides and snapping it like a twig.

“What was that?” I asked with complete confusion.

Ash rolled her eyes. “Just look.” She grabbed the snapped halves and began to draw? Lines appeared in the air, I recognized the opening in an instant. Eventually there were two slits in the air, not quite open.

“To Sullivan’s house,” she commanded before throwing the sticks in their respective rifts.

As if it caused some sort of reaction, both rifts became one in a door shaped. It looked considerably more stable than anything I had opened in the past. The darkness of the other side became the living room in an instant.

Ash stepped into the portal and went straight to the couch. She lazily stared at me waiting to cross. I shook my head not trying to overthink it and crossed the portal. The thing instantly closing shut after I had done so.

As soon as it closed, I headed for the nearest space on the couch and collapsed on it.

“Did you open it with the artifact?” I decided to ask.

“Yeah.” Ash was holding her head. “I am still in pain from the car.”

I closed my eyes and simply nodded. Though, I was unsure about how to proceed from now on. I didn’t want to keep killing ants or monsters, at the same time I felt… apprehensive about Ash killing people.

A sigh left me. “Ash, I don’t want to see more people die, at the same time this monster thing is…”

“This is the last one for at least a week.” She said with a heavy voice. “There were too many ants.” She shook her head. “If you still want to quit after a week, then let me know. But right now, I don’t want to deal with it.”

“Right…” I didn’t want to have a discussion with Ash either.

Ash simply stared at the ceiling with her eyes closed. I guess she was just going to rest. I sort of understood where she was coming from with the car⁠—not the killing⁠—it sounded painful having most of your limbs broken.

I stood up, and decided to head to my room. Perhaps I was just tired. She had killed one person, but this person wasn’t… he didn’t seem good. He tried to give me money to buy my silence… And he wanted to run away too…

Upon entering the room, I headed straight for the bed, too tired to clean myself, I simply stripped my poor excuse of a shirt and jeans and laid there.

In the end I didn’t know what to think. I felt both were wrong, Ash was extreme for doing that, and the man was bad for doing that. Then no one was right…

A sigh escaped me as I tried to simply forget about things and simply sleep. No more monster killing for some time.