Once more the witch sucked a soul from Selene, this time white and pure, glistening like snowflakes caught in the low light of a winter's afternoon.
Mesmerised, Selene watched as it entered her double, the same way the demon soul had entered Cecily; trickling over the lips.
The girl swallowed it, gulping it down as though it were the sweetest nectar.
Meanwhile, the witch turned to Cecily's prostrate form and kissed her too, breathing life into her cheeks, bending low over her to reach down to where she lay on the floor.
Selene turned her head, her neck aching against the restraints. She could only just see Cecily but, as she watched, the body began to unfurl and grow, the skin stretching and changing.
It was repulsive to watch, and yet fascinating, seeing Cecily's features morph into something else, disappearing from the world forever, and no one to mourn or miss her.
The flesh turned pink and looked as though it would be warm and soft to the touch, and the femininity began to disappear, replaced with a masculine hardness. Her prettiness clothed in Arthur's handsome face, stealing its way over her features.
Selene gasped on seeing Cecily's clothes vanish along with her body, and waited for them to be replenished with some larger masculine attire. But nothing happened. The witch pulled away and looked down upon her work, smiling.
"He is ready," she said.
"He's naked," murmured Selene.
"He doesn't need clothes for what he will do. I have instructed him. He will not truly live, but will act upon impulse. The girl is the same. They have no choice in what they will do." The witch moved towards Selene. "But we must vanish, so they believe they are alone."
She waved her arms in the air and hummed a melancholy tune, and as she did so Arthur seemed to wake, walking to the girl on the other side of the room, as though he had known she was there waiting for him all along, even before he opened his eyes.
Now they stood on one side of the room, while the witches, Selene and Hector stood on the other. With desperate movements the witches began to untie Selene, releasing her. And as they did so, sliding her off the table, a clarity took hold of Selene's mind, and she felt like herself once more, but changed in some intangible way; lighter, perhaps.
The table, now vacated, disappeared into the floor as though it had never been there, and with an exuberant gesture, the witch summoned a gauzy curtain of mist to fall from the ceiling, separating the two sides of the room. As soon as it hit the floor it became transparent, and had Selene not seen it fall, she never would have realised it was there at all.
Selene, her legs unstable, edged her way toward Hector, moving slowly so as not to cause alarm.
"Is this right?" she asked, watching the two doomed figures on the other side of the room.
"Nothing here is right, Selene. It's a matter of survival. Without this," he pointed to where Arthur and the girl stood, face to face, "you would be dead."
"And what of you?" she asked. "What do you have to gain from this?"
"Nothing, it would seem. I thought I had everything to gain, but now I see it was all for nothing. Everything I strained for. Everything I concealed from the government. I am pursued by Central Control for a fantasy. I ruined my life for nothing." He sighed and glanced sideways at her, a deep hurt in his eyes, running his fingers through his hair, tugging on clumps.
"Silence, please," hissed the witch. "It is important to watch, to see it is done right."
As Selene focussed her attention on the Arthur and the girl, she realised it was almost like being back at Epershand, watching Jonathan Masters and Thirty-Seven. Except this time the girl would die.
Arthur's body was perfect, each muscle sharply defined as he approached the girl, who smiled, welcoming his proximity, relishing his nearness.
"I've waited for you too long, Zero," said Arthur.
"Too long," echoed the girl as he took her in his arms and kissed her.
He pushed her away and took the thin fabric of her gown between his fingers and pulled it up. Obediently she raised her arms over her head and he pulled it off, revealing the fact that she wore nothing beneath it.
Selene wanted to look away, but some stronger urge within wanted to watch. For months she had fantasised about herself with a man who looked like this, whether his name be Hector or Arthur, and here she was allowed to see it played out before her. It was like watching her own death, her own fate, and knowing that it would not harm her.
Hector's face was tense, his jaw rigid and his brows drawn together low over his eyes.
Arthur stroked the girl's body, his hands running over her shoulders, down her neck, clutching a buttock and tenderly stroking her breasts, teasing her nipples.
"Please," begged the girl, in a voice that belonged to someone else.
"I can't watch," said Selene, ducking her head.
"Watch you must. It is important to see what is sacrificed for your life. To bear the burden of it for all eternity," whispered the witch, gliding to Selene's side and raising her chin with one finger, forcing her to watch.
Arthur took longer over it than Selene had imagined he would. He pleasured the girl over and over, seducing her entirely, making her ready, her naked body shuddering with each climax.
Finally, when she had begged him over and over to satisfy her, he lay her on the floor and forced himself inside her, tearing his way through her flesh. The girl cried out and Selene tried to cover her ears, but the witch was there once more, pulling her hands away, forbidding her from missing any of it.
And then, when it was nearly over, he bared his fangs and dug the teeth in, writhing in ecstasy as the girl's blood flooded his veins.
She grew pale and weak and her screams turned to moans Selene could barely hear. To the side of her neck on the glistening floor was a pool of blood that had escaped Arthur's ravenous jaws.
When the girl was dead, Arthur leaned back, kneeling on the floor, blood dripping down his chin and onto his muscled chest. He raised a hand and smeared the blood over his neck, licking his lips.
And then he threw back his head and roared, blood still dripping from his fangs.
"I take this world and make it mine!" he shouted, standing and beating his chest with clenched fists.
He was formidable, and Selene was afraid.
"He will think he is unconquerable. He is wrong," said the witch, as she watched Arthur's proud nudity displayed before her.
"How long will it last?" asked Hector.
"Until the souls die. It could be hours, days, weeks, years even. But as I said, time is nothing here. We have none of it and plenty of it all at once."
"But what will you do with him?" asked Hector, watching anxiously as ARthur began to strut from side to side, finally recognising the small cell he was imprisoned in. He began to beat the walls with a strength that shook the room Selene stood in. She felt his power, his conviction of his own indestructibility, through the pounding she felt in her feet and in her ears, drumming in time with the blows Arthur rained down on the walls.
"Keep him. Like a pet."
Hector frowned on seeing the witch's coy smile as she observed Arthur thrashing about.
"He showed no remorse for your death," said Hector, turning to Selene. "He didn't care at all."
"He's enchanted."
"Not anymore."
Selene looked to the witch for confirmation and she inclined her head in agreement.
It was true; he felt nothing. He had hardly even looked at the girl once he had bled her dry.
But, Selene realised, she had felt nothing watching him. No desire, no love, no envy or jealousy. Yes, she could appreciate him for the impressive figure of a man he was, but it was no more than that.
So this, she realised, is what it feels like to be free, to be unencumbered, to be released from possession.
And yet all at once she wasn't free at all: she was trapped by other emotions that constrained her and battered on her consciousness like a heavy rainfall. She felt a great hatred for that man, a resentment for what he had done to her and how he had treated her. And Hector too; he had had a hand in her downfall. He ultimately, was responsible for all of it.
Vampires. Every last one of them was evil, through and through.
And just as she was becoming more and more her own independent human self, she was sure Hector too would be becoming truly Vampire, thoroughly evil, with no human impulses left.
Without the soul to soften his cruelty, he was nothing but Hector Stanley: one of the most vicious Vampires in history.
And here they stood, shoulder to shoulder, the love between them dying with each second that passed, twisting and warping to become a deep intractable hatred.