The Random

Chapter 25: Monoliths of Carthadia

Chapter Twenty-Five: Monoliths of Carthadia

     It wasn't the ominously dim glow of the moon, nor the myterious depth of the darkness, that made the night  more haunting than the past ones. There was an unusual chill in the roaming winds, its defiant coldness creeping through the atmosphere. There was a lingering hymn of grief playing almost inaudibly in the air, sorrow and vengeance ruling over the furious ambient.

     Uno Lamarque is now dead.

     That truth ushered in a growling call of revenge.A deafening chorus of howls, grows and hisses soon perpetuated over the night's silence. Grion raised his right hand, revealing his lupine claws, their tips edged with a renewed gleam—one that could represent his growing fury inside—as if they were ready to get slashed against the enemy's flesh.

     There was a sudden burst of flames atop the monoliths; one by one each tower's peak exploded into rolling balls of fire, growing into eternal protrusion out of the monolith's gaping windows. The searing flares lit up and devoured the dark, and revealead the nearly invisible mists playing adrift the bitter air.

     In the east, the Neander emerged, its shadow seemingly parting from its box-like frame to crawl against the ground. Through its skirts, the Lithium snaked around treacherously. There was a sudden growling rustling sound, as if the water were agitated by the sudden touch of light on its surface. Hours ago, a storm fed it up to the levee, but it didn't flow with such turbulence. There was a vengeful roar as the waves seemed to race against each other, and distorted barely recognizable haunting sounds were joining it in a relentless malevolent rumble.

     There was a grave dug at the middle of a circle formed inside the surrounding monoliths. It appeared like a crater, its sides crawled all over by thick fogs. Around it were smaller holes, a lamp stand stuck to the ground, in each one.

     Gerardo Grion stood over the flat surface of a raised octagonal platform that was wedged to the ground, before the crater. A werewolf, on his human form, and whose back was hunched awfully—so awfully his shadow almost depicted a figure of camel crouching on the ground—came near to him to hand a metallic pale that was filled with burning liquid. He was carrying it through a large branch of a tree that was already beginning to get charred.

     The Riddleman let out a fugacious growl at the sight, his eyes gleaming against the scorching brilliance of the flare. He nodded at the hunched werewolf and beckoned at him to bring the pale down to the ground. Beside him was a larger limb of a tree whose tip was covered with thick layers of cloth. He took by his right arm and drop into the flaming pale and immediately drew it out; the tip were now burning in flames. He extended the branch to the lamp stands, and quickly set them to fire, one by one, until what was on the inside of the crater was revealed.

     Inside, was Maestro Uno's body, submerged in a seemingly combustible gleaming liquid. The surrounding fire rose and burst more intensely, and in no more than another minute, it touched the surface of the crater and bluish fire began surging upward, burning con-flagrantly with the surrounding flames. There was a haunting whistle as the fire exploded to a monstrous inferno,

     Jerry and the rest of his pack and Maestro's vampires took several steps backward. They watched the scene with both horrified and furious stare. Against the rustling sound of the mammoth fire and the creaking bones getting reduced into ashes, a union of deafening howls and hisses surfaced in the air. Jerry outstretched his arms and faced the moon, howled to it, his bulging chest receiving the glow as if absorbing the moon's power. The night's silence gave in to the rumbling voices calling for retaliation. Soon the fire spewed like whizzing spring from the ground, and the voices went deafeningly louder.