This is a serial fiction I'm writing,
Dark Magical Orchestra, which updates once a week on Mondays. Please enjoy, and leave comments in the main thread
here if you liked it, or noticed anything that needs improving. ^_^
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First Movement: Dark Magical HouseguestsDeep recessed in the mountains of Eastern Europe, a quaint villa stood, cut off from humanity. It is here, in the year 1950, where one might find the abode of young Cosette Garidion. On this calm, fair-weathered day of her eighteenth year, she was to be found reading alone in her study.
She turned another page of the musty grimoire on the desk in front of her, then gave a sigh of something not unlike boredom. Her white hair fell across her pale back, over a black and raspberry-colored dress handed down through the ages of her illustrious family. Her golden-hazel eyes, however, shone with a sharpness and force of will that mere boredom could not allay.
On a piece of paper beside, her, she was making various calculations, notes, and thoughts. Every few moments, she would stand up and walk over to a large board, covered with an ornate map of the world, study it for a bit, then return to her previous seat to continue making notes.
Upon her board were various pieces, like soldiers or chariots or kings. Even monsters and eldritch creatures loomed among them. Every few moves, after consulting her books and papers extensively, Cosette would move a few pieces, and slide a dial on the table forward once notch.
Cosette began moving more rapidly now, adding and removing pieces, replacing them with deep red pieces from a chest nearby. After a hundred trips to the table and back, with four hours of work behind her, the dial at last read 2050 as Cosette removed the last non-red piece from the board.
With a huff of frustration, she scuttled the red pieces off the board and replaced them into the chest, returning the board to its previous state, and resetting the dial to 1950, its initial value.
“A hundred years is too long to rebuild the empire.” She sighed, looking up at a picture which hung above the study’s old mantle. It was an oil painting of the Roman Emperor, Caligula, a figure Cosette still traced her family lines back to, and whose legacy it had been her life’s dream to restore.
It was too early for a fire, but she would probably have to put one together soon. The spring still wasn’t warm enough to stay up too late without proper heat. Perhaps she could call Narshe to do it for her. Servants must have some use, right?
As she was considering calling upon the one other soul within fifty miles, she was met with the sound of a loud crash, followed by the whining voice of her compatriot. “Ohhh, Coseeeeeette! Heeeeeelp meeeee!”
There was not a sense of urgency in the words, and they were drawn out in an annoyingly blithe singsong way. Even after she heard the crashing downstairs and felt the shaking of the old villa, she couldn’t be too bothered to hurry.
She traipsed down the red carpeted hallway and descended the staircase, stopping to brush some dust from a vase, before another shockwave rumbling through the house almost knocked her from her feet.
“What is it now, Narshe?” Cosette called back, in a voice that didn’t attempt to hide a single ounce of annoyance.
From the door to the basement, another young-looking woman appeared. She had reddish eyes behind thick spectacles, and a light brown cloak over her blue skirt and shirt. Disarrayed brown hair was sticking out at odd angles, and her glasses sat slightly astray. Her figure was tall, but full in the important places, making her seem much more mature than the somewhat childlike Cosette.
“Ah, well, there was a problem with my binding spell.” She shrugged, straightening her glasses.
“What did you set loose this time?” Cosette’s lips curled into a disdainful sneer.
“Hmm… a Destroyer?” Narshe scratched the back of her head with a laugh. “I needed demon tears for my experiment.”
You can’t bind a Destroyer.” Cosette’s mouth hung open a bit, giving her servant a disbelieving look. “What sort of fool... why didn’t you just summon a Mourner, they practically give away tears.”
Narshe gave a coy look, “Well the summoning would have involved us performing a hedonistic ritual under the full moon, and the last time you said that it made you really uncomforta-”
“That never happened, and stop involving me in your decadent fantasies. There are twelve ways to summon Mourners, why do you only know that one?” Cosette’s hands rested on her hips in a kind of pout.
At about that moment, the house shook again, and with a colossal force, a terrific beast smashed through the wall which separated the main villa from Narshe’s laboratories.
A huge beast, around eight feet tall burst into the foyer of the villa, its skin was a dark brown, and reeked of sulfur, while red hair ran down its head and back. Large green eyes glanced hastily around the room, while feral teeth clicked a few times, eager for something to devour.
“You there,” Cosette pointed to the beast in a rather imperialistic manner, “desist immediately!”
The demon gave her a critical look, then heaved a three hundred year-old statue of one of Cosette’s grandfathers over its head and lobbed it at the girl. Tipping her head to the side impassively, Cosette dodged as the statue whizzed by a hair’s breadth to the left.
“How dare you defy me?” She pouted, stamping her foot.
Narshe looked up at the demon towering over her and gave a little shriek, as she took a step back. The demon grabbed her with a swift movement, preventing her escape, and lifted her over its head.
“Oh, Coseeeeette! It’s got meeeee!” Narshe whined.
“That sounds like the result of a critical error on your part.” Cosette sneered. The impact of the statue against the villa wall had turned the old relic nearly to dust, and the girl was kneeled down, collecting fragments of the statue into her hand.
“That’s true...” Narshe mumbled. With a snapping sound, her whole body dissolved into a red mist, which floated out of the demon’s fingers just as it was about to crunch down on her head.
Cosette walked calmly down the stairs, “listen here, listen here.” She got the demon’s attention. “You’ve got a lot of nerve to break into my palace and start destroying my things, but I can kind of respect that.” She held out a hand to signal that she wasn’t done yet. The demon scratched its claws into the ground beneath its feet, splintering the old wood, yet it listened to her speak.
“Actually, it’s my villa.” The red mist collected itself together and resumed the form of Narshe.
“Yes, but I own you.” Cosette scowled back. She was walking in a circle around the demon now, as she spoke. “I realize you like to break stuff, but really, you could be more polite. At least it was great-great-great..." She paused to count
greats, "great-great-grandfather Calval. I didn’t really like him anyway.” She paused at the spot where the statue used to stand and looked down with a slight smirk, before resuming her pacing.
“Anyway, point in point.” The girl continued, “You like to break stuff, and I have things that I want broken. Why don’t we work out something more beneficial to both sides?”
“Your suggestion presents no gain for me, mortal. Whether I destroy you and your things or some other’s, it’s all the same for me. I can, and will, destroy you first, then move on to the others.” The demon spoke in a raspy, infernal tone, and it lifted a massive fist to crush Cosette in a single blow.
“There’s a certain critical flaw in your plan.” Cosette held up a finger and gave a slight smirk, as the demon’s fist fell above her.
In a flash of light, the creature’s hand shot back, burning in white fire, repelled by some invisible force.
“A circle of bone shall bind Calamity.” A trickle of white limestone dust from the ruined statue fell from Cosette’s hands, which she clapped together in an attempt to clean off. Surely enough, a ring of the substance followed the path she had walked, a complete circle around the demon. “Now that you’re in my power, the table turns, destroyer. Will you still refuse me?”
“I thought you said that Destroyers couldn’t be bound...” Narshe made a thoughtful gesture, biting one of her long, red fingernails.
“I said you can’t bind a Destroyer. For me, it’s a paltry feat.” Cosette tossed her hair back, laughing. “I’m a descendant of King Solomon, after all.”
The demon roared in anger, slamming its fists several more times against its mystic prison, before curling up upon the floor and nursing its wounds.
“Narshe.” Cosette turned to her accomplice. “Bring me a vessel, and some rings.”
“Ah, right away, mistress.” Narshe headed off.
“And don’t call me ‘mistress’.” Cosette’s yell chased her off.
“Release me now, and I will leave you in peace.” The demon spoke again, in as civil a tone as a Destroyer can manage. If you bind me, you shall come to dearly regret it, mortal. My master is the Archdemon Knale, a twelfth-ranked sovereign of the pit, and reserves dear tortures to those interfering with her servants.”
“Consider your offer considered... and declined.” Cosette shrugged, “If your master had disciplined you well enough to kill me rather than listen to my speech, perhaps I would be afraid of her.”
Narshe returned, carrying a set of polished bone bangles in one hand, and the lifeless body of a what appeared to be a young girl over her shoulder.
“This was a really fun one.” She dumped the girl on the floor, licking her fingers. Two bite marks were clearly visible on the girl’s neck, as well as various other places on her body. Narshe knelt down and affixed the bangles to the girl’s wrists, ankles, and neck.
“You really are a despicable creature, you know that?” Cosette stepped past Narshe and grabbed hold of the dead girl’s arm, tugging. The corpse moved a few inches across the floor, despite decent effort from Cosette.
“Move her over there.” The young Cosette nodded her head toward the other end of the room, dropping the corpse’s arm in as dignified a manner as she could manage.
“As you wish, mistress.” Narshe giggled, hefting the form of the girl with one hand, and carrying it across the room.
“Now, we can do this the easy way...” Cosette addressed the demon, pointing an imperialistic finger at it, “or the long way.”
“Don’t presume to torture me, pathetic mortal. That is a glory reserved for Lord Knale alone.” The demon struck again, succeeding in injuring itself even more badly.
“No, I can’t force you to do anything, of course...” Cosette laughed. “But I know what demons like you fear the most.”
“I fear nothing!” The demon struck again, blasting itself with another crash of white flames.
“Precisely, precisely. I’m just going to leave you here alone until you decide to join me. Let me know when the boredom gets to you, and we’ll talk again.” Cosette made a motion with her fingers for Narshe to follow, and the two left.
Five minutes later...
“Damn you, mortal! I concede!” The demon bellowed, and Cosette and Narshe popped back out from the other room.
“Hehe… even weaker than you imagined.” Narshe snickered.
“Do what you like, wretch, just let me out of here!” The demon roared.
“Of course. Once you inhabit this body, you’ll be free to move around as you like.” Cosette tipped her head again to Narshe, and the vampire lifted the girl’s body into the air, tossing it to the demon.
Throwing its head back, the demon seemed to dematerialize as its essence was absorbed into the corpse. In a bright flash of light, then total silence, the corpse collapsed onto the ground, immobile.
With a twitch, it moved, then set its feet on the ground. As though pulled up by marionette strings, the body rose to a full standing position. The form of the girl was there, but it was the demon’s aura glowing behind her, a radiant power impossible to ignore.
“Now to destroy you both for this indiscretion...” the voice was a bit higher pitched, but still a somewhat low mismatch for the body the demon inhabited. It began to walk towards Cosette, stepping over the circle with ease.
“Stop there, servant.” Cosette ordered. The body of the demon halted automatically at her command.
“What is this?!” The demon strained against some cosmic force, but her body seemed unwilling to obey.
“A ghoul can’t disobey the commands of the vampire who creates it.” Narshe shrugged, tapping her neck to remind the demon of the bite marks which covered her body.
“Or the master of that vampire.” Cosette smirked coolly at the bound demon before her. “These rings of bone will bind you to the body, which only obeys our commands. So then, so far as no harm comes to me, Narshe, or our possessions, you are free to do as you wish within the grounds of this manor. Consider yourself dismissed, slave.”
“Raaaaaaaaah!!!” The demon roared and swung her fist, which stopped a hair’s breadth from Cosette’s face. “Damn you, witch!”
“Ah, I’m sure we’ll be having lots of fun together, my new pet...” Narshe licked her lips, snapping back into a red mist, which whisked out of the room and back into her laboratories. “Come here, and I’ll make you cry some tears for me.”
Cosette laughed a high pitched laugh, and waved the demon off. Despite its curses and cries of protest, it followed Narshe to the south end of the villa.
Back in her study, Black Cosette drew another piece from the chest beside her table, and placed a red destroyer demon beside her own piece on the board.
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