Angel Monarch

Chapter 68: The Home of Nightmares

Faith watched the prison burn with everyone, but then she remembered where they were and their mission.

"Will, Lucy and Clockwork you lead everyone out of here. The other Evolved will help in the escape." The three of them nodded and she turned towards her next objective. But before she could leave a large hand garbbed her shoulder.

"Where are you going?" Asked Hellfire.

"There's still some people I have to rescue. I'm heading to Nightmare's home to get them." Hellfire nodded and said.

"Okay, lets go!" And with that he took to the skies and flew towards Nightmare's mansion. Faith was stunned for a second.

'Fuck me, that was hot!'

She shook these stupid thoughts out of her head and went after Hellfire. The streets were mostly empty around this area, which was a bit weird.

'I would have thought, that they would keep their leader's house more secure. But also we are closer to the fighting, so maybe they all went away to help.'

The main reason they came here was to free the girl and any other slave they would find.

'Now that I think of it, we haven't heard from the girl since my escape. I hope she is alright and that Nightmare is not home.'

Faith approached the house, Hellfire was already waiting for her. In shadow form she went behind him, then turned back into her human form and tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped and turned around fast with his halberd at the ready.

Faith giggled at this display. "Don't be scared it's just me."

Hellfire was still breathing quickly, but a small smile was playing on his lips.

"Did anyone tell you, that you would be a great assassin?"

She just shook her head and said. "I'm no assassin, just a Devout Shadow." Then she whispered. "But if My Lady orders, I will kill anyone."

With that Faith turned away and went into the building, leaving Hellfire stunned. The building was huge with hundreds of rooms, it will take a while to look through each of them.

Hellfire stood next to her. "Where do we go first?"

Faith said with no hesitation. "The basement."

The two of them looked for the entrance to the basement, but as time passed they became more and more unsettled. The whole place was empty, not a single soul was in here, no guards, no slaves, not even Nightmare.

They eventually found the entrance but stopped at the top of the stairs. Faith looked at Hellfire, both of them were very concerned.

"What do you think?" Asked Faith.

"It seems like no one lived here for at least a couple of days. Are you sure this is the right place?" Hellfire didn't actually doubt her, but was desperate to find an explaination to the missing people.

Faith turned away and went down with a sigh.

'This is bad! If they evacuated this house before the attack, that means they knew about it. Did the girl betray us or they tortured the information out of her?'

They arrived into the basement here was a large room with a human shaped table at its center. There were starps, blood and human waste all over it. There were also torture devices all over the place.

Hellfire stopped dead in his tracks seeing all this. He sighed and shook his head.

"Oh, Nightmare... What happened to you?" He sounded very sad.

"He went insane... The headaches, we don't know what caused them but they drove him Mad."

Hellfire looked at her, then he moved on.

"It doesn't matter now. If he is already lost his mind, then I will put him out of his misery. I swear it!"

Faith only nodded and they went into the next room. It was a corridor with only one door at its end. Not wasting time they approached it and tried to open it. The door was locked, but that didn't stop Faith. With a shadow dagger she cut the locking mechanism and the door opened on silent hinges.

The room was barren, it had one bed with a nightstand next to it and a bucket in the corner. There were chains coming out of the walls, but the room was empty.

They approached the chains, their end was quite small. Likely for a child around 8 years old.

'We were late... FUCK!'

Faith threw the chain so hard it imbedded itself into the wall. She was angry, but a hand held her shoulder firmly. Hellfire was looking down at her with concern.

"Who was kept here? Judging by the chains it must have been a child."

Faith was trying to calm down, but it was hard. Eventually she said.

"She doesn't have a name yet, she is an 8 year old whom Nightmare liked to torture. She forgot her real name because of the tortures, Nightmare only called her Freak and she thought that was her name."

Faith was crying at this point and Hellfire hugged her. Faith didn't even know why she was crying, it was just so sad. Through the tears she continued.

"She's an Evolved, with an ability to move her soul outside of her body. Eventually she learned how to communicate with us and she helped so much. Without her this rescue would have been impossible. And I... I promised her... That she will be rescued with...

with everyone else..."

Hellfire didn't say anything just held her and waited for her to calm down. After a couple of minutes she managed and her rational mind took over.

'If the girl is not here I should go back to Sera and help with the retreat... There's nothing left for me to do here...'

With a big sigh she turned away from the room and called over her shoulder. Faith's voice was emotionless as she said.

"Lets go, we need to help with the retreat."

Hellfire looked at her with concern, but didn't say anything, only nodded and went after her.

They were just about to move towards the frontline, when all the power came back on. Faith and Hellfire looked at each other, then he took to the skies with her in his shadow.

They both knew that something very bad is about to happen.