Visionary (Dark Star)

Prologue

SEVERN

Draining a vampire completely of their blood is the most efficient way to kill them. Capture them and incapacitate them, then slice their neck. When the last drop of blood has drained from them, they will die, vanishing into the Netherworld. For me, though, it’s not that simple.

Ceril had been draining me of my blood for centuries.

He would have me hung naked by my ankles with leather straps and chains, before slicing my throat using the same rusty dagger every time.

The weapon was never cleaned. He would just drop it on the floor after slitting my throat.

He tossed it aside as useless junk to be used again in a month or two when I was useful again.

The dagger clanked as Ceril tossed it to the ground.

Rushed footsteps sounded from behind where I hung, and Ceril raised his hand to the other angel in the room with us.

“Don’t worry about the dagger, just leave it.

” My blood had begun to quickly drain into the black tub beneath me, not a single drop to be wasted.

Ceril walked slowly around me, his black loafers tapped lightly with each step.

“Just leave him here for a bit. It will take some time for everything to drain. Lowell provided you with all of the information, right?”

A soft, feminine voice sounded from behind me. “He did.”

“Good. I’ll be back in a few hours.” My father didn’t leave the room without grabbing the chains from the ground and whipping them back around, catching me across my torso.

I tensed at the pain, doing my best not to show the hurt, but it was impossible.

Ceril chuckled softly as he turned and walked to the exit of the dark warehouse room.

The most prominent sound in the room was the constant drip of my blood in the tub. It echoed through the empty warehouse space, bouncing off the concrete walls and surrounding me with the resounding reminder of my fate. Something so much worse than death.

The other angel was somewhere nearby. I could feel her presence lingering as I hung by my ankles.

The chains were digging into the thin skin around my ankle bone.

Even the slightest movement, and I could feel my skin about to shred.

“Just get it over with,” I mumbled, spitting through blood that had dripped over my mouth.

My body was growing weaker by the minute.

The longer this angel took to beat me, the better, because I would feel less if I was numb.

But if Ceril came back and I hadn’t been tortured to his liking before I passed out… that would not be good.

Chains began clinking as the angel dragged them across the floor closer to where I was hanging.

“So, you just hang there and take this? You don’t fight back or anything?

” The angel rolled the chain around in her hands before looking directly at me.

Closing my eyes, I sighed heavily. “I don’t even know what to say.

” Her words were softer as she walked closer to me, the chains still dragging on the floor.

The sound they made had become all too familiar over the years. It didn’t even faze me anymore.

The angel stopped walking, and the blood dripping was the only sound echoing through the warehouse again.

I opened my eyes to find the angel standing directly in front of me.

She was tall, with a thin frame and short ice blue hair.

The all-black suit she wore made the blue seem bright, nearly neon.

“You don’t say anything.” I sighed before squeezing my eyes shut.

Her soft footsteps moved around me. The harsh clangs of the chains sounded through the empty concrete room, and I braced myself for what was to come.

The angel let out a soft grunt, and a rush of pain whipped across the back of my thighs.

Through the pain, I noticed that my feet had truly gone numb.

The blood loss was starting to settle in.

The angel released another crack across my back.

The permanently tender flesh at the top of my back where my wings were once attached burned like molten lava.

The pain was excruciating as the chains whipped yet again across my back.

This time she hit me directly on the scars, causing me to flinch.

The sound that left my mouth was involuntary. “Ahhh!”

Each time the chain hit my body, it felt different.

But nothing felt nearly as bad as that blow to my scars.

As the blood drained from me, the numbness ran through my body.

Blood didn’t sustain my life like it did beings, but it did keep me awake.

I wouldn’t die by simply having my blood drained.

Ceril had too much to gain by keeping me alive for now.

The last hit across my chest was barely a tickle as everything in the room started to fade, my body almost entirely numb.

What came next was the best part of these nights, the few moments that I did actually lose consciousness.

For a brief moment, I felt like I could actually be dead. That all of this would be over forever.

As the chains clanked down on the ground, I relaxed, and the last remaining bits of blood trickled into the tub.

Everything went still.

Silent.

Dark.

Muscle fibers slowly began to reattach in my neck.

When the tendons linked back together, I could feel my head begin to reattach fully to my body.

My vision was blurry at first. Each time I blinked, the scene in front of me was clearer.

The blue-haired angel stood with her arms behind her back, facing me.

Ceril stood next to her, having reentered the room during my few precious moments of peace as usual.

“You did well, Tirah. Welcome to your new assignment. When I bring my son down, you’ll get him prepped and watch over his progress when he recovers.

No additional time is ever considered; Severn is aware.

” They both stood staring at me as my body pieced itself together agonizingly slowly.

“Any additional supplies he may need are stored over there.” Ceril gestured to the closet that held the materials he allowed me to use.

Everything was incredibly high quality. I may be the son of a father who had me beaten and tortured, but he didn’t let me use shitty materials for my art.

Canvases, various paints, brushes, and anything I could imagine were fully stocked each time he brought me.

The pieces he forced me to make were making him a fortune on the black market in Noirhaven.

Feeling started to come back to my limbs slowly.

Each muscle would cramp when the blood would begin flowing through the arteries.

My body would tense, causing the chains on my ankles to tear at the skin even more.

I would hang until my body completely repaired itself.

He wanted me to feel each moment of being put back together the same way I felt each moment of being ripped apart.

The real problem was that I couldn’t die. At least not as easily as most beings. Being Senketsu meant that only one thing could kill me, and demon blood was not high on my list of things I wanted to try.

Tirah pulled the tub from under me. It was now filled with my blood. A metallic sheen coated the top of the dark liquid as she moved it away. I watched as Ceril dipped a small glass jar into the tub, filling it and screwing a lid back on.

“He will need some time to regain his footing once you get him down.” Ceril turned and began walking toward the door. “I need at least four pieces of Severn. Good fucking ones too. Two weeks, Tirah.” Ceril slammed the door behind him as he exited the warehouse.