Heart of Darkness

"Have I seen you somewhere?" Skender asked the man, trying to take a closer look.

"Perhaps." The man replied.

"You knew my parents?"

His lips twitched. "You remember?"

"You killed them?" Skender said.

"I had nothing against your parents."

"But you killed them."

The man tilted his head. "Yes."

"Why?"

"For the same reason that I will kill you."

"And what is that?" Skender wondered.

The man chuckled. "Well, I am creating something and the witches insist that you need to be sacrificed for that after I use your blood. It is just one of the things they believe in but..." he shrugged. "They know what they are doing."

"I hope you know what you are doing," Skender said. "This seems foolish."

"Indeed. It is not easy with defenders even newborn ones like yourself, who don't have a trained demon. But I have always been a risk-taker."

"You numbed my demon," Skender said, but there was more than his demon that was numbed. What did he do to him?

"Partly."

"What did you do?"

"According to the witches, they awakened an ancient God, that channels your powers and leaves you powerless. They will use that power to call on the God of sacrifice."

Skender laughed. "You believe in that nonsense."

"When you see it, you just believe it. You are here after all. Powerless."

"Well, I hope the sacrifice is soon before I make you a disbeliever." His voice was low and menacing.

The demon chuckled. "Your parents made the same threat. You know what happened to them."

"I am not my parents. You have the wrong person."

The man stood up from his seat and came to tower over him. He grabbed his face and tilted his head back. He watched him for a moment. "No. You look exactly like your father but you surely are not like him." He released him and left the room.

Skender leaned his head back, his head throbbing from pain. What exactly did they do to him? He didn't believe in the ancient God nonsense. He knew witches believed in such, but it couldn't be true. He should know better as an original. What witches believed to be Gods, was just the devil in disguise.

His head spun, and he began to lose track of time as more blood was taken from him. Something was wrong. He was supposed to be a defender. Have endless power. It had to be somewhere. He needed to know how to use it.

Suddenly something stirred in him. Roxana. She was distressed. Why? Wait. The bond remained. It wasn't gone when everything else was gone.

He fought to release himself again, ignoring the witch's warning of permanent damage. His scream of agony echoed in the empty room as blood seeped from every hole on his head.

Skender was dizzy from the pain he lost track of time. He just knew they came a few more times to take his blood.

***

Meanwhile, Constantine was shocked to know that the blood that would be used and the sacrifice would be Skender.

"Why?" He asked Nathaniel. "What is special about his blood?"

"Well, I need different components to create what I desire. With your kind, I used demon blood which makes you able to heal and teleport but you didn't get some of the other components. Animal blood, so you could shift, and prophetic blood so you could keep the strength of demon blood. I discovered the specialty of defenders blood the first time I drank it. It is just..."

Constantine watched him remember the taste or the feeling. He closed his eyes and inhaled before opening them again.

"It is magical," he said.

And he was abnormal.

"Defenders try to keep the purity of their blood by reproducing with other defenders but... truth is just that the blood needs to be pure. Like mine. Original blood doesn't change the defenders blood. The new shades will be exceptional." He said, proud of himself.

Constantine didn't know what he hated the most. That this man killed Ramona or that he created him. He was sick.

"He is a defender. How did you capture him?" Constantine asked fishing for information.

Nathaniel went to relax on the sofa. "I have worked on this for a long time trying to figure out how. I have fed my witches and provided them with all they need. I have the best of them here and many of them. That is a lot of power. Something skilled witches can do is suck the power out of someone or something. That fact that he is drained of blood and his demon is numbed also helps."

He looked for more information without trying to be obvious. "Is that safe? He could still break through and he is dangerous."

He wanted to know if it was possible.

"There is always a danger in all of this. He could recover, that is why I am trying to finish it soon."

How would he recover? What did he need to recover?

"You will soon see what you wanted to see," he told him.

No! He did not want to see it. Constantine went to the window and watched the witches in a circle. They have been standing there for almost a day now, chanting around the fire, consuming either Skender's blood or Nathaniel's. None of them moved out of the circle. It was other witches that provided them with something. Were they just preparing for the ceremony or was that to suck out Skender's powers?

"Are they not tired?" Constantine asked.

"No. They have demon blood now and whatever strength they are drawing from their Gods."

Strange. He didn't seem to believe in the God thing either. But this constant chanting, there must be something in it. What would happen if he disrupted it? Would Skender be able to free himself?

He must try before it was too late. And when would someone come looking for him? He understood that this place was difficult to find but Skender must have people with enough resources.

Some time passed by and he was eating his dinner. There were guards everywhere. Strong shades fed with some demon blood. Constantine explored every possible option but there was no way he could get out of this alive if he tried something stupid that he wasn't even sure was going to work.

Again, he heard the agonizing scream of Skender.

"My Lord," A witch came to Nathaniel. "You have to do something. We can't hold him for too long. He is too powerful."

Nathaniel calmly put down his cup of coffee. "How close are we?" He asked.

"We are waiting for the moon to align with us."

"And how long will that take?"

"We don't know." She said. "But is difficult keeping him and doing the ceremony at once, especially since he keeps trying to free himself."

So they were holding him with some ongoing spell. No sucking and just leaving.

"Drain him of all blood." He said.

Then maybe blood was what he needed, but how would he get to him?