"Shut up!" Gerard roared, but his voice drowned in the chorus of thousands of rebelling souls.
"You belong to me!"
Flash, standing a few meters away, sharply turned to Susie. His face was covered in blood and soot.
"Susie!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the screams of the burning vampires.
"The sun! Prepare a barrier for Ethan! Now!"
Susie, lying on the floor beside Ethan, weakly lifted her head. Her face was wet with tears and blood, her left hand a horrific stump. She nodded, though her strength was almost gone.
"I'll… try…" she whispered in a trembling voice.
She stretched out her right hand. A blue glow flared around Ethan's body, weak, flickering, but slowly beginning to stabilize, forming a protective cocoon against the sunlight falling from above.
Gerard, still on one knee, looked at them with pure hatred.
"You… won't escape…" he wheezed, trying to stand. But the souls continued tearing at him from within, preventing him from regaining full control.
Susie, despite the monstrous pain from her exploded fingers and the shock paralyzing her mind, didn't ask questions.
She simply knew what needed to be done.
The five fingers had been torn away by the magical contract, and blood was now gushing from the wounds. Every breath sent sharp, throbbing pain through her. Susie clenched her teeth so hard they creaked. Tears streamed down her cheeks, mixing with dirt and blood, but she refused to fall.
"Hold on…" she whispered almost soundlessly.
Susie raised her right hand, trembling and weak, and gathered the last crumbs of her magic. A blue glow flared around Flash's group, Gideon, Bruno, Anna, and the unconscious Ethan. The barrier was thin. A fragile sphere of light covered them, repelling the sunlight falling from above and the raging black hurricane of souls.
"This… is all I can do…" she exhaled.
The barrier cracked and creaked, as if ready to shatter at any moment, but it gave them a few precious minutes of respite. The sun rays piercing through the broken dome hissed and bounced off the blue surface without reaching the group.
Susie swayed. Her vision blurred. The pain in her arm became unbearable, and exhaustion crashed over her like a heavy black blanket. She took a step back, her legs gave out, and she collapsed straight into Bruno's arms.
"Susie!" he shouted, catching her. His voice was hoarse with pain and worry.
"You did great…"
She lost consciousness in his strong arms. Her head fell limply onto his shoulder, and a thin stream of blood trickled from her mouth.
At that same moment, the black energy of the souls that had burst from Ethan's stake reached its peak.
And then everything disappeared.
Ethan found himself somewhere else.
A white space.
Endless and pure. No walls, no ceiling, just a flat white plane stretching into infinity. In the middle of this nothingness stood a bar.
An old wooden bar with a worn counter, high stools, and rows of bottles behind it. It looked exactly like the bar where Ethan had worked almost his entire previous life, before everything fell apart.
Only now it was empty.No one was there.Except for the bartender.
A tall silhouette in a white shirt and black vest stood behind the counter, calmly wiping a glass. His face was hidden in shadow, but Ethan immediately understood,it was himself. A dark copy with eyes as empty as an abyss.
Ethan slowly got to his feet. He was whole. No wounds, no blood. Only a slight dizziness and a strange, frightening calm inside.
"Where am I?" he asked hoarsely, looking around.
The bartender set the glass on the counter and looked at him. His smile was calm, almost gentle.
"Where everything begins and ends. You died," he replied in a voice that was both alien and painfully familiar.
"You came for answers, Ethan?"
Ethan took a step closer to the counter. His hands were shaking.
"What's happening? Am I really… dead?" he asked.
"What is this place? Is this Heaven?"
The shadowy version of Ethan leaned forward slightly. His eyes flashed silver.
"You accepted this fate," he said quietly.
"I don't know if this is that place or not."
The white space around them trembled slightly, as if ready to show something more.
Ethan slowly approached the counter. His legs barely obeyed him, but he still sat down on the high wooden stool. The wood creaked quietly under his weight.
The white space around them was completely silent, with no sound except the faint clinking of glass.
The shadowy entity, his own dark copy, stood behind the bar. It unhurriedly wiped the glass with a snow-white cloth, looking at Ethan.
"So, do you want to discuss the red card and substitution?" the entity said.
"What?" Ethan asked, confused. He felt no emotions here, only bliss.
The entity placed the glass on the counter and slid it toward Ethan. Inside swirled a dark, almost black liquid with silver sparks.
"Eh, you still don't get it," it said in a low, velvet voice that carried an echo of his own.
"Are you ready to fight me? I'll absorb you and your human version will disappear. What do you say?"
Ethan stared at the glass for a long time. Then he slowly raised his gaze to his shadowy copy. There was no fear in his eyes. Only exhaustion. Deep, draining, almost indifferent exhaustion.
"I'm not going to fight you," he said quietly, almost emotionlessly.
"Take me. I don't care anymore."
The shadowy entity slightly raised an eyebrow, visibly surprised. It stayed silent for a moment, then sighed.