Chapter 8.

All night.

The pain in the words etched on his arm only increased, to the point that if he looked closely, he could see some veins. The wound was deep, but the blood didn't spill; it was just there as a reminder that he had to pay.

The pain was intense, and as he looked at the girl, he wondered if it was worth doing what he was thinking about just to keep her alive, to give her back what he and his brother had taken from her. When he looked out the window toward the Tempus estate, he saw him.

 There stood Patrick, walking into the house with his head held high, his face upright, as if nothing that had happened years ago really mattered, and maybe, it didn't matter to him since it was only his debut.

But the pain nearly made him faint, causing him to fall to the ground when he realized the letters had pierced through to the other side of his arm, and if he looked closely, he could see the reflection of his other hand there…

That's why, as soon as dawn broke, the first thing he did was invite his parents to have a picnic in the woods, one of those they had many years ago when he was still a child.

 Without suspecting his true plans, the couple accepted, making sure the girl on the property had no way out of the basement because they couldn't take her with them, at least not yet in her condition…

So, they decided to give her a sedative and seal the basement window, place a piece of furniture on her door, and shield the windows throughout the property so she could finally leave…

The teenager gave them a smile, one that would make them not suspect anything. Once in the forest, he gave them a blindfold and told them he would take them to see the most wonderful tree he had seen in recent days. 

His parents laughed, wondering what the enormous oak tree was where they had carved their initials when they were much younger. Instead, what they found wasn't the oak tree but the waterfall. 

They had never heard of a waterfall in the forest, at least not within the permitted limits. But before removing the blindfolds, they felt a huge impact with a rock, or what they believed to be one. There they immediately lost their lives...

And they didn't crash into a rock, but directly into a Gargoyle, the oldest of all, the one that had seen the battles fought by the King in its time, the one that today would give the young man knowledge of the impossible, and that's how, in practically one movement, it tore his parents' hearts out...

Richthofen didn't dare utter a word; another of the Gargoyles brought him the decomposing body of the mermaid he had hunted long ago, and the owl they had met yesterday…

In a stone bowl as shiny as crystal, they placed the hearts of the four species of the two humans, the mermaid and the owl, and with the claws of a harpy who had been injured yesterday, they began to mix the hearts until they became like glue…

And a harpy, a mermaid, and an owl stood on either side of the young man. The harpy flew over his head, the mermaid landed next to him, and the owl was on his other side. It was then that the harpy placed her claws on his head, piercing his skull in different places. 

This made him tremble, and he tried to step back, but the mermaid took hold of his right side and the owl on his left, rendering him motionless. They were the mothers of the creatures he had hunted…