As soon as I summoned the deck of cards, I could feel the tension in the room rising; everyone had taken out their weapons, which mostly included strangely shaped guns, and was ready to open fire. Even the butler seemed incredibly tense, as if ready to tackle me at any minute.
"Want to see something cool?" I asked the kids as I shuffled the deck of cards.
I was surprised by the sudden rise in tension, so I quickly began shuffling the deck, juggling the cards in my hands before anyone would interrupt me to stop me.
The twins were even more on guard, so they didn't answer me; they were slowly backing away towards the door. Clearly uncomfortable by the presence of the deck.
Don't worry, by the end of the show you'll be left in awe, just like we all were whenever Father put on those shows.
"Demonic powers aren't as scary as they might sound." I told them as I drew a set of five cards.
A knight, a tower, a princess, a king, and a dragon—the perfect combination to start any fairy tale, so I cleared my throat and began improvising a story as best as I could.
"They can also be used to entertain others; in the fracture, these powers are used in all sorts of ways. This is just one of them," I said as I began placing a few cards down to change the area around us.
"Once upon a time, there was a kind princess." As I began narrating, I dropped the cards on the ground, one by one, slowly changing the room around us to fit that of a princess's chamber.
As I activated the power of the cards, I felt something within me slowly draining. The toll it was taking on my body felt noticeable; I still had plenty left in me, but I could tell I couldn't last half as much as my father did.
"This princess lived in a faraway land, idolized by many for her kindness and wit, but then one big bad dragon appeared, snatching the princess away from her people." As the pieces were moving forward, the space around us kept morphing until I finally dropped the tower card.
"Sealing in her tower, far away from the kingdom and its people," I added. As I kept drawing cards, I made sure to be as overdramatic as possible with my gestures.
With each card dropped, I was slowly inching closer and closer to the twins; they too seemed to slowly gain trust over time.
It didn't take much time before I finally reached them; the twins were too invested in looking at the environment around them changing to notice I was inches away from them.
To get their attention back to me, I stomped the ground on my last step. I offered them my left hand, offering them the choice to draw a card, since they seemed still reluctant to draw the next card.
"He locked the princess in a tower he guarded—"
"Aren't we a little too old for these tricks?" Lucifer suddenly interrupted the story I was carefully crafting, snatching the knight card from my hand and casually dropping it to the ground.
"Go kill that beast." He ordered the knight he had just summoned, tilting his head in the direction of the beast.
"The first time it worked because we were all in on it, but if you have to make such a boring story, then you might as well give up now; you don't look cool at all; at most you look childish." He arrogantly stated as the knight he summoned was tearing apart everything I was trying to create.
"What the hell is wrong with you… Didn't you say you didn't care about the guests? Why are you interrupting me?" I yelled back as I drew another to fight him, yet the moment we locked eyes, glimpses of those horrific memories resurfaced in front of me.
Stop! Not now!
The silhouette of Lucifer grew darker and darker as the image from my memories was slowly overlapping his; his eyes became darker as the energy leaking out of his body was slowly turning red.
Instinctively I dropped all the cards I had in hand, ready to fight him, but before their content could be summoned, I saw the giant spiked ball being hurled right towards my face.
I heard the sound of metal clashing along with the scream of the kids.
"Alright kids, this ends here; this discussion is getting a little too heated." The first thing I heard after that was the voice of my butler, standing in front of me.
When I opened my eyes, I saw his hand in front of my face, his white glove pierced by a blade as blood was dripping to the ground. The knight had let go of the chained ball and had used a sword and tried to pierce my head, and the butler had stopped him.
The other maid dashed forward, but before she could even reach them the two of them struck each other and distanced themselves.
The knight was impaled by a spear that the butler made appear out of his shoe while the knight extracted the sword out of the butler's hands.
He came out with his entire forearm split in two by the blade; the knight instead had his guts spilling out of his body from the hole in his abdomen.
The knight seemed to be the one that came out more damaged, yet once the two had taken some distance from one another, the butler fell on his knees first.
Stop!
I tried to recall my powers, but the knight refused to comply with my orders. He attempted a third attack from a distance using a bow he had just summoned and got taken out by the maid.
She slipped behind him without him noticing and slit his throat open, finally putting an end to that uncomfortable situation.
The other maids rushed over to take the butler away as well as clean up the room of the stains of blood, ignoring the twins that were now even more terrified than before.
Fuck. And here I was trying to make a good impression on them; now I just look like a fool with no control over her power. All because of that thing…
I wanted to punch him in the face, knock his nose off his face, and pummel him with fists until that smug grin disappeared, but in reality, I could barely even keep eye contact with him.
"Young master, I think it would be better if you—" The maid beside him tried to say something to him out of concern, but the moment she tried putting her hand over his shoulders, he shrugged her off.
"Leave it be; I'm tired now. I'll go take a nap. I still haven't recovered from this morning's sparring session." He said while clearly looking at me.
His arrogance and malignance were in full show.
I simply remained silent; I ignored him until he finally disappeared from sight.
By then I had thrown myself at the nearest chair; all my strength had been depleted from the sheer stress, and I needed a moment to unwind it all. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't alone in that room.
"For fuck's sake, for how long do I have to tolerate that fucking… ugh! I fucking hate him. Why couldn't he just… I don't know; disappear! If he loves his cousins so much, why doesn't he move in with them? Why does he have to cause so much trouble here?" I complained as I threw my right middle finger at the door.
Even this dress is uncomfortable… I liked the way I dressed back at home, although they weren't as pretty… at least they weren't so… they sting; it feels like a myriad of needles are constantly poking me. I don't want to suffer to look pretty.
But with a glance I saw the other girl; she was an exotic beauty with silver hair, wearing a dress that looked fairly complicated, and to her, the biggest worry was me, not the fabric she was wearing.
I wish I could… wait a minute.
It was then that I realized I wasn't alone. I was sitting down in such an unladylike manner, legs spread out, sitting with my back curved, heavily leaning on the back of the chair, and sitting on the edge of the chair.
I quickly fixed my posture and cleared my throat.
What do I do? I don't know anything about people up here… help me, nameless wolf butler!
I quickly turned around and was reminded of what just happened; he was losing so much blood, and his face had turned pale while the other servants were doing everything in their power to stop the bleeding and heal him.
I'm sorry… why was I worrying about such stupid things? What's wrong with me? How did I turn like this so quickly? This place is slowly getting to my head.