The girl happily jumped up and down in place a few times and clapped her hands.
"Yay! We've repelled another wave of the demon-tyrant!" she shouted. "But this is only the beginning of the night. Come, we need to feed another creature to the demon and prepare for the next attack."
Inside the house, around a bend in one of the corridors, a figure in white flickered into view. It darted away. The Cursed chased after it. He caught up almost immediately, just beyond the next turn.
The fleeing figure turned out to be a woman with dark hair and tense, frightened eyes, dressed in a white gown. She crawled backward along the floor, stretching out one hand in supplication and shaking her head, as if begging him not to touch her and not to harm her.
"Who are you?" the Cursed asked.
"That's my nanny," the girl announced, running up from behind. "She's good. She does all the housework and takes care of me while my parents sleep in the Chamber of Sleep."
The Cursed stood puzzled and frowning. How many more strange inhabitants of the mansion had he not yet seen—and might encounter in the darkness?
They continued on their way and returned to the room with the well. The girl pressed another button, turned the lever, and another creature was dropped into the dark abyss. Once again, the creature's screams and the demon's deafening roar echoed out. Then a piece of the creature's hide flew out. The girl picked it up and looked inside with curiosity. There was a yellow powder inside.
"This is magical pollen. When you scatter it into the air, it turns into those creatures that can protect against the approaching threat."
In the garden, they stood and watched a new wave of horror coming out of the darkness. Numerous swarms of large black insects flew toward the estate. Their long predatory mandibles were open. A demoralizing low hum of wings.
The Cursed raised his hand, clenched into a fist, and opened it. The yellow powder scattered into the air. The girl summoned wind in the garden with a magical spell, and the pollen spread across the entire estate. The iron bars of the fence were covered with white webbing, with spikes and a terrifying, menacing geometry of patterns. Large black spiders with armored bodies and numerous eyes glowing with red light.
The flying creatures swarmed like a black cloud and got caught in the web. They shook and writhed like mad while the large spiders devoured them with insatiable hunger.
Above the darkness outside, a wild scream of pain echoed again. While the spiders finished off the enemies, a giant black figure with horns rose over the darkness and headed toward the estate.
The Cursed saw the protective mark on the garden door completely fade. Nothing was left to hold the external demon from invading the magical oasis. No barrier remained.
The black horned figure was approaching. It was dominating everything around it. The large black spiders shrank and died. The web scattered.
In the garden, behind the Cursed, a strong wind rose. He turned around. The girl was hanging vertically in the air, 30 feet above the ground, and her dark hair was whipping in the wind. Her eyes were glowing with blue lights that kept growing larger and larger. A terrifying magical power was spreading around her. The wind was picking up, gaining immense force.
The black horned demon figure reached the estate fence and stopped. It could go no further, as if a new magical barrier was holding it back. The black figure raised its massive limb and delivered the first strike. It crashed against an invisible wall. The figure struck again. And again. But it was all useless.
The girl hung motionless in the air the entire time, watching him. Only the strong gusts of wind whipped her hair.
Then she raised her hand. The black horned demon took two steps back. A wild roar erupted from him. Numerous black winged creatures, a doomed flock, burst out of his chest. And then the demon shattered into tiny fragments that scattered through the air. The main enemy was destroyed, but the black darkness surrounding the estate did not dissipate.
After a while, he realized the reason. Midnight had just arrived.