Hello my beasties! The next chapter is finally ready! Just so you know, I'm combining Daria Cohen's deleted song along with your song into this chapter! The deleted song is up above so you can familiarize yourself with it before we dive in. On another note, the results are in for deciding your song! The most popular choice that I've picked is Little Bird by Rachel Rose Mitchell! Due to the popularity of the song due to your votes I've decided to choose this song! (Also because it fits the story I'm planning than Hey Alice.) Now for all of you beasties wondering about when I'm introducing my OC'S, I've come to ease your worries. You see, there will be a few references to my OC'S in this chapter but you guys will be able to officially meet the first OC in the next chapter!(She kind of  popped into my head when I was looking for Ideas and both she and I are very excited for our first introduction!) Now beasties let us return to the castle where something very interesting will be happening.....

Y/N's P.O.V:

It was what you would have called a stereotypically dark and stormy night. Outside the castle, the rain was pouring down, with the occasional echoes of thunderbolts reradiating through the castle. Bare branches scraped menacingly against the windows, the flashing lightning creating shadows that resembled gnarled, twisting fingers......

Yes, it was a night of true darkness, a night that signified that bad things were on their way, ill omens afoot..... The type of night that would make Edgar Allen Poe himself roll over in his grave.

But you paid little attention to the storm outside because you were currently in the castle's vast library, absorbed in a tiny leather-bound volume you'd just plucked off of the shelves. It was one of the rare moments when you found yourself out from under Missi's service, so of course, you were taking full advantage of your temporary freedom.....

And besides, the library was deserted at least. Missi had taken to locking herself in this room for nights at a stretch, practicing her dark arts, barely sleeping, drinking any blood, or barely even acknowledging your own existence.......

But none of that mattered right now in this moment in time, as you delved deeper into the realm of escapism, in this library of dark treasures..... 

And what treasures they were! Shelves upon shelves of books, papers, journals, and more all organized in a chaotic bizarre matter, with classic books mixed in with tomes of dark magic, no visible method of organization, and even some books shoved into whatever tiny bit of space was available, making sometimes for a unexpected booby trap when a volume would drop on your head or on your foot when you just wanted to read about elemental magic......

It was..... beautiful, in a chaotic sort of way.

And you'd read a great deal of those dark treasures over the past  year......

A leathery volume that for all the world appeared to have a humanoid face on the cover, and on closer inspection, the covering of the book was revealed to be made of something akin to human skin.....

A child's picture book of fairytales, with illustrations so beautiful you could almost swear that the animals breathed, the wind whipped through the lavishly painted trees...... but the stories in the book were another matter entirely, stories of children who found witches in the woods(and how the witches found the children delicious), nightmarish beasts, and the most horrible deaths saved for the unwitting heroes who dared oppose them.....

A great deal of books from The Story of O to Carmilla, that looked in good enough condition to be considered first editions......

Countless tomes of magic, from dark magic to elemental command, to spells to turn a person invisible.......

A tiny untitled volume with stories of fantastical plants and their properties, from electric lilies, wolfsbane, and blood roses........

You seriously doubted that most of the legends in the book were real (A circus made up of demons? Yeah right.) But you secretly wished that you would see one of these Blood roses, even if the book said they were hard to find. You certainly had the "dead" thing down to a tee..... but as for the whole true love thing? 

That definitely wouldn't be happening any time this century....... not if your own pathetic life had anything to say about it.

Closing the book and placing it on top of a small pile of books you had created on the floor you got up to explore the rest of the library. You'd already found a few volumes on dark magic, 

Out of the corner of your eye, you spied a very familiar cat sleeping on a pile of papers. As of late, this little black and grey cat had been lately turning up around the castle, seemingly appearing and disappearing in various rooms of the castle without any indication of how in got in or out. The cat was pretty cute, but you had a sneaking suspicion that it was somehow watching both you and Missi, as if to judge you actions over the past few weeks. But then again, cats did have that personality trait. Maybe that's why Missi seemed to care about the sulky feline more than she cared about you. You'd seen Missi stroking that cat on her lap as she read through a book on dark magic, tickling it under its pointed chin, cooing in delight at the presents of dead mice it left for her(and of much larger animals that you wouldn't expect a feline the size of her cat to have the ability to kill....), Missi adored that scruffy little beast. It almost made you a little jealous that she'd replaced you so quickly with that surly feline.....

And what was that cat's name again? You recalled that it started with an M, Minnie or something like that..... Then, the thought came to you. Oh yeah.... Minoise. Yes, that was the cat's name. 

Minoise sleepily lifted its head, blinking its mismatched eyes at you as it regarded you with the same indifference most felines gave you. Guess that's why you were never really that much of a "cat person", per say. You preferred animals who were more open at showing you affection, thank you very much.....

Realizing you were being watched, you turned away from the cat and walked towards the center of the room which you guessed used to be a study of some sort before Missi overran it with all of her notes on the resurrection spell. Even though Missi's personality had gone over some ver drastic changes over the past year, you were slightly pleased to see that your former friend still had one of her most annoying habits. Meaning her organizational skills, or lack thereof. Papers ranging from sketchings of humanoid and slightly less humanoid anatomy mixed in with papers covered in strange runes, books stacked haphazardly on top of one another, a random humanoid skull, vials of unknown substances, a half-filled goblet of blood.......

At least that part of Missi hadn't changed..... Your friend had many good qualities about her-smart, funny, incredibly sweet- but organization wasn't one of her strongest suits, that was for sure......

Just behind the desk, you noticed something you hadn't before. You'd explored a great deal of this castle by now, save for the library-which you only came in every so often to look for a new volume on Dark Glamour or a spellbook- which was so massive that you probably wouldn't be able to read every 

But then again, you think you'd have remembered seeing THIS display of ego. After all, there were at least a dozen similar pictures scattered around this massive castle you'd discovered from your stint exploring..

It was a large, ornate picture frame with a tarnished golden border, a dusty plaque barely visible underneath a heavy layer of dust and grime.

And there was the painting's occupant, in all of his undead glory, a hand on the infamous bat-headed cane in question, a devil-may-care smirk playing across his lips.......

Staring up at the picture for a moment, you gathered your thoughts for a moment before speaking.

"Huh. It figures that I'd find another display of your massive ego here. Well, at least it wasn't the..... more erotic one that I found in one of the bedrooms. That's five seconds of my innocence I'll never get back...."

The picture offered you no response. Hate bubbled in your core until it burst out of you in a wave, your crimson eyes flashing with rage, your fangs bared.

"Don't smirk at me like that! You did this to me after all, you have no right to be looking so..... smarmy!" You yelled, gesturing at your now blood red eyes, your significantly paler s/c skin and your mouth full of fangs.

Of course, being a painting, it gave you no response, that same annoying smirk 

Staring up at the picture, you became angrier and yelled: " You basically ruined my life you bastard! Because of you, my best friend has probably gone insane, I can't even go outside during the day without turning into a smoking pile of ash and hooker heels, and oh yeah! I'm a bloody vampire now! So really, I must thank you for all of this!" You added sarcastically. All the hate you were feeling at the man in question, your own turning, your neglect at the hands of your own best friend was finally bubbling over, making you into an unrecognizable creature or rage, toil, and ashes......

Breathing heavily you looked around the room before realizing how pointless it was. The object of your anger was long since dead and you were taking out your frustrations on a fucking picture! How had you become so pathetic in such a short amount of time you wondered.

The silence consumed you, extinquishing your rage for the time being.

You paused for a moment, letting it sink in. Yes, you an avid horror fan, were more scared than you had ever been in forever.  Missi had changed in the past year, and definitely not for the better. She was more reserved now, more aloof, spending nights at a time barricaded within the library, save for 

And the fact that she seemed to be communicating with some person who didn't exist really was bothering you.....

Had your friend gone insane, driven to madness the moment she picked up that accursed cane?

And then there was you, talking to a painting of a dead vampire man who definitely couldn't answer you, wherever he had ended up. Maybe you really were the insane one in your friendship.....

"Look at me, am I really so lonely that I'm talking to a freaking painting of all things?" You asked, a small smile forming on your face at your own ridiculousness. "Oh, and I guess I can't keep calling you Mr.Vampire forever. I mean you probably have a name, what is it? Count? Dracula? Nosferatu?......" You trailed off, noting your own stupidity. God, you sounded like an idiot when you spewed out all those names.... And what vampire would call themselves Nosferatu unless they wanted to endure teasing about how impossible it was to pronounce the name.....

A glint of gold caught your eye. Stooping downward, you read the inscription of the tiny plaque, wiping away the layer of dust with the sleeve of your gown.

"So you're Duke of Vaults, hmm? Well, you kinda do look like a Duke......" He did have that same almost arrogant level of confidence about him, the kind normally seen in members of nobility(or at least from what you'd read of them), and there was a certain mischief in that smirk that hypnotized you for the briefest of seconds .......

The sound of footsteps in the hallway took your gaze off of Duke's portrait and brought your gaze to the door.

Shit!

You were typically never in the room when she was practicing one of her many resurrection attempts for Duke,(as you were now calling him) so you were sure that she would be less than pleased to see you when she was trying yet another resurrection attempt. (This was what? The tenth time she had tried the spell? Eleventh? Really, you hadn't been exactly counting. And besides, who the hell cared?) After all, there was an unspoken rule that you weren't supposed to disturb her when she was "working"......

Moving into a space behind the rows of bookshelves, you knelt to the ground, dress crinkling as you did, to watch Missi from your hiding place. Maybe if you just stayed silent, Missi wouldn't notice you.....

An agonizing moment of silence passed.

Suddenly, the door burst open and there she was, along with that staff she never went anywhere without anymore. Missi looked more disheveled than usual, locks of her violet hair standing on end and plummy circles offsetting her ruby eyes. She looked almost as if she'd aged ten years in the past few weeks she'd been undertaking this resurrection process, which of course, was impossible. The two of you hadn't changed in the slightest over the course of the year, frozen permanently at seventeen.....

Jesus, has she been sleeping at all?  You wondered as Missi stalked towards the desk in the center of the room, bypassing the cat, who opened one icy blue eye in acknowledgement of its mistress's entrance to the room, before it yawned, baring its sharp teeth in a lazy breath.

Missi headed over to a strange machine, probably one of the "ingredients" she was trying to use to make the spell work. It was vaguely steampunk in structure, it took up a good portion of the area that had become Missi's study.

After fiddling around with the machine for a second, Missi lost interest in the machine, instead choosing to fix her anger upon what was next closest to her: the desk.

     Winding all the dials and the wires and the spires

 and the tests for all the connections and injections still to run

Missi swept her work  off of the desk startling the cat as a humanlike skull missed it by a hair. For the briefest of moments, you felt a flare of sympathy for the poor beast as you watched it scramble off into the darkness of the library.......

   Capacitors and meters and the alkali and beakers

 No gathering cadavers and they kicked me out of school

Her old backpack, now dust covered and dingy became the object of her anger next, being quickly trown to the ground below, before she found something else 

The same portrait you'd be conversing with not even five minutes ago.

She stalked over to the portrait you'd been examining, her composure quickly stiffening with anger, the next few words nearly a rage-filled snarl..... the hatred for the man in question all too apparent in her stony expression.

There was also a hint of desperation to her tone, as if she was pleading with Duke, hoping her voice would carry to wherever he had ended up in the afterlife.....

 Please come back to me there's so much we could be!

Please come back with voltage I invoke!

Flicking a switch on the side of the wall, Missi illuminated 

 How in the hell had Missi managed to get electricity hooked up in this place?

Heck, you couldn't even get a good wifi signal on your phone anymore, so how in the hell had she managed to set up something this elaborate in the few weeks she'd been attempting these dark arts?

Please come back from empty cracks and berths of black

Come to me I'm summoning your ghost!

Missi approached it, lifting a all to familiar suit into the cauldron. There suddenly was a blinding flash of white light eliminating from the cauldron. Aw jeez, that smarts! The blinding glare almost proved too much for your light-sensitive eyeballs.....

Sheilding your eyes from the glare, you couldn't help wondering if Missi was actually going to succeed in the latest of her many resurrection attempts.....

Please come back from bowels of black

 from silent shores to me once more!

Her ghoulish grin widening, she turned her attention towards

Through veils and gates and seas of slate

To blood-red moors where I await ashore!

Missi outstretched her arms, awaiting the results. You held your breath. Was she actually going to succeed this time?  Honestly you were so unsure of your own feelings about this whole "resurrect the guy who'd chased you through his castle and wound up turning you into a vampire" thing.

Then, just as soon as the blinding light appeared, it suddenly disappeared. Missi's smile faded as she peered into the cauldron. Her grin fading into an expression of pure, unbridled rage.

After a few agonizing seconds, it was apparent that nothing was happening. You exhaled, a small part of you relieved that Missi didn't succeed in whatever insane plot she'd been planning once she resurrected the vampire who'd got you into this mess in the first place.....

After all, who in their right mind would want to resurrect the man who got you into this whole mess in the first place, besides Missi of course..........

Missi stalked back over to Duke's portrait. " This is your way of mocking me isn't it?" She yelled, glaring up at the portrait, pointing one accusatory finger at the portrait's occupant. Getting no answer, she let out a hmmph, and spun around on her feet away from the picture, crossing her arms in frustration.

Her annoyed expression suddenly changed to one of pure rage. "I'm TRYING Lilith, but nothing I'm doing seems to be-" Pausing, as if listening for a response from the unknown voice she was communicating with, her expression lost some of its rage, slackening off into something eerily calmer. She looked almost..... chastened, almost as if whatever voice she'd communicated with had..... given her a talking to, somehow.

"I'm sorry, I lost my temper there, but-"

She suddenly paused, and turned around. " Y/N, I know you've been watching this so come out from whatever little corner you are in, little bird, I want to talk to you." Her voice taking on a darker tone.

You came out of your hiding place, heading over to the desk, however tentatively. What sort of mood was Missi in? If only you were just a slight bit better at predicting her ever-changing moods, for you never exactly knew what to expect from your friend anymore......

Missi collapsed into her chair, visibly deflating once she sank down into the soft velvet of the cushions, looking even more exhausted than usual, briefly putting a pale hand up to her temples to seemingly rub at what was the beginnings of a migraine.

"I'll be needing you to get me some more ingredients for me to test out, considering electricity doesn't seem to be powerful enough to "remake the world of the living enough so the dead can reenter the land of the living"." She said, pulling out a bottle of blood out from under the desk, taking a swig from it. (A/N: The way I see it, Missi is looking for the correct spell ingredient that will be strong enough to bring Duke back to life.(as she just quoted it from the book.) Grimacing at the strong taste, she briefly glanced back in your direction, making you briefly stiffen under her gaze. God, it was times like these that made your spine turn into jelly, and your unbeating heart nearly skip a beat(if it still beat, that is).  You, y/n l/n, were actually scared of your formerly sweet friend.

And you had good reason too, after all, it was almost as if.... if......

Almost as if another person entirely had institated the drastic personality change that had come over Missi.

Paying no mind to your nervousness, Missi passed you a hastily scribbled note, motioning for you to read what was written on there.

"So I'll be needing you again to fetch me these ingredients on the list, so I can finally complete the resurrection spell." Looking over the list you let out a mental groan. Great, more things to do on top of your regular chores(opening and closing the curtains, fetching books for Missi to look over, making sure that Missi remembered to drink blood when she was particularly absorbed in her studies). Whoop dee fucking doo.

You let out an audible sigh. "The Marl-pit again? Missi, the last time I went that place, I nearly got dragged into the marl by Rawhead and Bloody bones. And besides, I already have too much to do around here, I still have to remember to close the drapes before dawn comes, and a thousand other things...." You really, really didn't want to have to go through THAT again, where the creature's skeletal hand had latched onto your leg, nearly pulling you in screaming to where it was said that the bones of children who told lies and spoke profane curses lay in the marl-bed.....

Missi let out a sigh. "Come on y/n, it won't be that bad. And besides, I'm pretty sure 'Old Tommy Rawhead' isn't going to be so keen about snatching you up again after you burned him with that fireball of yours....." You winced at Missi's flippant way of speaking. Yeah, you'd been able to use a bit of your magic(you hadn't been just reading any old books over the past year) and managed to wriggle out of the fiend's grasp. It had left you shell-shocked, and most annoyingly..... completely covered in sludge and slop. Ughhhh..... That stuff took you hours to clean off, even after you'd tried tromping through the rain in hopes some of it would wash off......

And you couldn't forget Missi's face when she got a glance at your bedraggled state, the girl looked like she was desperately trying not to laugh......

Noting your unsure expression, Missi let out a sigh, as if greatly unimpressed by your antics, but instead of turning away like usual, her eyes found yours......

Instantly, you began feeling uncomfortable. Jeez, it was getting kinda hard to meet Missi's gaze at times, the way her ruby eyes almost appeared to peer straight into your soul at times was 

Okay, what was Missi doing exactly? Her voice took on such a reassuring tone there, like she was soothing a pet, or a small child, it was so soothing, so hypnotic...... Maybe you should undertake Missi's quest to find the perfect ingredient for the resurrection spell. After all, you couldn't say no to your best friend.....

But wait, you couldn't, you....... had your pride, right? So you should be able to say no to Missi just this once..... But Missi was your friend..... A very unstable friend..... But she was still your friend....

An uncertiant tone taking over your voice, you responded. "I don't know........"

Missi gazed at you, an all to familiar tone creeping up in her voice. "Y/n, please! You know I can't leave the castle due to all of the research I have to do, and besides, you're so much better at all this magic stuff than me, I can't even do THIS one spell correctly....."

It was all too clear that Missi was trying to play on your sympathy, on whether you'd cave into whatever she wanted you to do, whether you were still loyal enough to your friendship to 

After a brief moment of waffling on whether to take Missi's offer, you let out a defeated sigh. "Okay, I'll get you the ingredients. I mean, you are my friend and all...."

Missi offered up a beatific smile. "Thank you!!! You're so amazing!!!" She looked so happy, almost like she was your old shy, book-loving best friend again.......

Offering up your own smile(although this one faltered for the briefest of moments), you picked up your stack of novels, and began to leave your friend to her "brooding"......

A pale hand grasped your wrist suddenly, nearly making you gasp aloud. God, it was like the bones in your wrist were being ground into powder, the joints straining and popping underneath the sheer amount of pressure that Missi's hand put on your poor wrist. In shock, the stack of books you'd been holding come crashing to the floor, skidding across the floor in quick succession....

"After all, we ARE best friends, right?" The tone in her voice..... there was a darkness in her voice that was so unlike Missi, her voice almost a dark purr, daring you to prove her wrong, prove that you weren't exactly all loyal to her as you'd seemed.....

Somehow, you managed to squeak out a response that satisfied Missi-although you'd blank on what exactly you'd said to get her to release you-and with shaking hands, you somehow managed to gather up every single on one of the volumes that had slipped from your hands, Missi's gaze following you all the while.

Standing up, you grabbed your pile of books and calmly walked out of the vast library, trying to not show the unease that was brimming in your core....... Only when you'd safely exited the library doors you took off in a sprint, nearly tripping over your own feet several times in your blind panic to just run, get away, far away as possible from your friend and her increasingly violate mood-swings.....

You finally stopped running when you were sure you were a safe distance away from Missi. Had she followed you? Had she sent that cat to make sure that you were going to collect opal dust or spider venom or whatever else was on the latest batshit insane list of things you had to fetch to get her resurrection spell working.....

You awaited, several more agonizingly painful moments, before your shoulders slumped in relief and you breathed out a sigh.

Well, guess it was apparent that Missi didn't even care about you enough anymore to send her feline farmilliar to spy on you, that you were that far below on the list of things she cared about she couldn't even spy on you like she used to......

 Sighing, you walked over to a gargoyle fixture on the wall and turned it upside-down on the wall. You'd come across this forgotten passage by chance one night, after you'd snuck off from your various duties to go and explore more of the vast castle.

A door, opened and you went through it. After walking down a winding staircase in a dark passage,(not to you because you could see in the dark) you finally came upon a vast room.

It wasn't just any ordinary room, it was an abandoned theater, long forgotten in the bowels of the castle, the only place you felt where you could be alone. It was once a grand place, now brought to ruin through neglect and complete disregard for what used to be a place where people put on plays, sang upon the stage.....

Walking down closer to the stage, you heard the beating of wings. As you turned around to see where the noise was coming from a small brown form swooped in front of you.

"Jesus, Spike!" You exclaimed at the small brown bat hovering before you. "You scared me there for a second!"  The bat offered what for all the world appeared to be a toothy smile, making your lips stretch into the barest echo of a grin. Somehow, this goofy little ball of fuzz and squeaks always managed to bring a smile to your twisted soul......

You had found this place by accident a few weeks after that long fateful night when you were exploring the castle, and less than a year ago this adorable little bat had come into your life as well. You'd named it after a character on Buffy the vampire slayer, even though the bat's sweet and more than a little dopey personality contradicted the personality of his decidedly more wicked namesake......

And the two of you had struck up an almost instantaneous bond, ever since you'd found him in this empty place.......

You had found him all alone, abandoned by his family in a corner of this very theater on night and you had took care of him ever since then (even naming him after a character on Buffy the Vampire slayer). And he was so teeny and helpless, a half-blind ball of peachy fuzz and squeaks, a minuscule little pup that you'd fed droplets of blood, taught how to spy for you.......

Spike flew around you, making excited little squeaks. "Okay Spike, I'm happy to see you too."

The little bat eeked in response, nuzzling up against your cheek, making you giggle at the soft fuzz brushing up against your smooth cheek. Aww, Spike really was such a sweetheart.

Spike landed on your shoulder and perched there as you made your way up onto the stage, the aged boards creaking underneath your weight ever so slightly.

On there, there was your old backpack, a stack of two books (your favorite one A Court Of Thorns And Roses and Missi's old copy of Twilight), a piano tucked into the far right corner of the stage with a half full bottle of blood and a silver cup resting on the piano bench, and your old jean jacket lying on the stage floor near your backpack.  

Besides the mouldering velvet curtains and the ancient grand piano, there were few things on the rickety stage besides a self-made mural of sorts(you'd been really bored, and besides, it made the place look a bit less dreary), yellowing pictures plastered over the back wall significantly improving the space. At least it wasn't so grey anymore....

Beautiful drawings, from sketches of unusual plants to sketches of humanoid creatures(the most notable being several creatures that looked to be vaguely mermaidish in nature with fins and elegant tails, a bullish being that for all the world appeared to be lacking any sort of fur or skin, and a girl with eyes as dark as a moonless night, no visible pupils, her very irises seeming to suck all of the light out of the air; her wolf-like teeth bared in a rictus of a smile ), to even a single portrait, although not of the artist, you guessed. It was simply entitled: Annabelle, showing a  young woman, her hair cascading down her shoulders in soft waves, a heart-shaped face, wearing some sort of simple unadorned gown, the hint of  a shy smile dancing upon her lips, merriment visible in her brown eyes...... She was rather ordinary looking, but there was a certain radiance to her, a kind of beauty not present within any botoxed model or glamour-puss prom queen.....

As for any clue to whom the artist was? Nothing, except for some very vague initials. Who was this L.M? Lucy Mornington? Lily Mosely? Honestly, you had no idea. Whoever had drawn those portraits, they were clearly long dead and gone by now, due to the amount of age that spotted the thin parchment......

You had often pondered who exactly had sketched the drawings that now decorated your makeshift room, who the subject was exactly, and why the journal stuffed to the brim of those lovely pictures was hidden away up in the attic of all places......

And one could not overlook the nest of ratty blankets and ancient velveteen pillows that lay further back on the stage, serving as a makeshift bed of sorts.........  

Yes, you'd taken to sleeping in this musty, forgotten place, eschewing a cushy bedroom for the solitude and 

Besides, it was better than being around your friend 24/7 and dealing with her ever-changing range of emotions, you thought to yourself as you rummaged around in your backpack, eventually pulling out an unopened chocolate bar.

You still craved the same foods you'd enjoyed back in your mortal life( it was like needing to eat chocolate when you were on your period, you guessed), although you seemed to largely crave blood over f/f. And you couldn't really enjoy much more than a few bites at a time, before you became incredibly nauseated...... which you'd found out, most unfortunately.  God, the sheer amount of nausea that'd gripped your poor stomach.... you still felt slightly ill as you recalled spending a night curled up in your 'nest', stomach rolling with nausea at every slight movement...

Opening a book at random, you waited to be lost in a world of escapism, to forget all that had transpired in the past few hours, to be lost in a world of ink and paper......

Normally, it took you all of five seconds to be immersed in whatever you were currently reading....

But yet, why couldn't you? Normally, it took you all of five seconds to be lost in whatever world awaited within the thin pulpy pages, to completely be focused on the inner workings of the characters that inhabited the fictional world, to be completely swept up in some other life that was not your own..... But this time, your mind had immediately began to wander.

Because your mind kept replaying your conversation with Missi, going over every detail, every syllable like some sort of bizarre slide show.

GOD!

You suddenly slammed the book shut, startling Spike who was just moments before perching peacefully on your shoulder.

No matter what you did, you couldn't seem to forget how she had hurt you. The silent treatments that lasted nights at a time. The disdainful glares. Looking upon you as if you were nothing but something disgusting she'd scraped off the floor. The random mood swings. The conversations with a person that didn't even seem to exist. 

This new Missi didn't seem to particularly care for you,  not one solitary inch. 

And she terrified you, this new Missi, so you'd turned into a mere shell of a girl, parroting empty words in order to keep in her good graces and to keep your home in this gilded cage you now resided......

That's what she had turned you into, a caged bird, parroting empty words in a gilded prison.

You drew your knees up to your chest, feeling the weight of despair crushing your chest.

You felt the rain

But it couldn't drown you

 it was nothing but drops on your head

Pulling out a photograph out of a pocket in the voluminous skirts of your dress of you and Missi in happier times, you gazed upon the photograph, loneliness welling up inside your core

The picture of you at Halloween was only two years before, and yet, after everything that had happened 

You've stood against the winds that hound you,

and carry the names of the dead

A sense of sadness washed over you, because you could probably never have your old life back, where you and Missi were still friends, and things made sense. And where the supernatural only exsisted within films, cleverly written novels, and the occasional entertaining television series......

If only you could soar away, and feel the sunlight again...

Getting to your feet you dropped the picture to the ground, your fist clenching as thoughts of what had happened raced through your head along with Missi's cruel little name for you, causing a flash of white hot rage to enter your mind. You clenched your teeth, singing your next few words angrily:

Poor "Little bird"

You parrot their words in exchange for a comfortable cage

Pretending to be all they want to see, you're a player acting on their stage!

You'd become so pathetic in the past year, nothing more than a drudge with an inability to refuse her best friend any  request, be it fetch her ingredients for spells, utter words of encouragement when she needed it, and lways, always, say what she wanted to hear.....

What had happened to your old, "take no shit" personality from the year before? You couldn't seem to locate that aspect of yourself, maybe it was hiding, buried under your nest of blankets, zipped up snugly in your backpack.....

Was your old personality hidden in the attic, packed up in those mounds of objects you'd found the journal in? Inside the desk in the library? Honestly, you weren't so sure anymore. Then again, you weren't sure of anything anymore.....

Pacing around , you thought for a few moments, your mind still whirling with questions? Why did Missi want to resurrect Duke anyway? She was very secretive about why she wanted to, which was very unlike the girl you had grew up with who was practically an open book(You knew when Missi was keeping a secret, she'd giggle, and her eyes would dart around, but this version of Missi seemed to be better at keeping secrets), and you secretly suspected that whatever reason, it wouldn't be good.

What good would come from bringing back the man who'd caused you to lose your humanity in the first place.....

You've heard it all

You know it all by heart, automatically you sing along

But would having that bastard resurrected be a lesser of two evils compared to dealing with a possibly psychotic version of your former best friend? God, it was a dilemma that only one of the great philosophers in their bathrobes could solve, and unfortunately for you, you were not Plato or Socrates, just a terribly lost vampiric teenager......

But nobody's there

You leave your head, the light's on but nobody's home

You know your lines but it doesn't mean you have to like them

God,if only you knew what to do, what exactly the right path was to take, to turn your dark reality around for good.....

Reading books had definitely not prepared you for making such life-altering decisions, hell, the characters within the pages of the novels you devoured were even better at that than you'd ever be, making decisions with barely anxiety or stress......

Poor little Bird, you parrot their words

in exchange for a comfortable cage

But then again, if you didn't make a decision now, you'd be stuck here forever, nothing more than a beautiful bird in a gilded cage.....

Under their glares, you act unawares

 in the darkening light of the day

It was almost as if it was Missi who was now jerking you around like a marionette, laughing insanely as you struggled within her bonds, nothing more than a puppet, a caged bird, a plaything for her every whim......

Open your eyes, take in all you see and imagine beyond!

The world is wide

More than you've ever known...

If you were to defy your former friend, somehow, in a big enough way that would reverse your set roles, see that smug grin vanish once she realized you'd beaten her at her own twisted game.....

So reach out and take it back

Your chains would be finally broken then, and you'd be free....

"Poor little bird" is all that you've heard

all these years but guess who's still alive

Then, once you were free of your proverbial bonds, you'd leave this damned place, explore the world, do whatever you wanted. You'd be able to truly......

Live as you wanted, with no regrets, no former friends telling you what to do, no craziness....

God, it sounded too good to be true....

Open the gates!

It's never too late, to dream past the day's you've survived! 

Breathing heavily, you flopped down, dangling your legs off the edge of the stage. Now, you just needed to come up with an idea, a plot, a plan brilliant enough to defy your former friend(Yes, you'd decided now that Missi was in the "former" category of your friendships......) for good, a plan that'd allow you to give her the proverbial middle finger, something so massive, so defiant....

But what could it be? What could be the ultimate "fuck you" to your former friend.......

Racking your brains for a plan, you thought intently for something, anything really, that you could do, anything at all......

Before long, a smile to rival that of Missi's and Duke's evil grins slowly stretched its way across your features. God, it was so brilliant, so dastardly, so deliciously evil even....... It was no plot to rid the wizarding world of Dumbledore, but damn, you sure felt like a wicked witch, wicked enough to rival Bellatrix herself....

It was pretty brilliant. You really were getting into the spirit of this whole "villain" thing.....

You'd preform the ritual for the resurrection yourself. After all you WERE quite an adept magic caster by now, you should be able to preform the spell without a hitch(and nervous? Who was nervous....), and figure out the missing ingredient.....

But what'd happen WHEN you did succeed in resurrecting that man? He wouldn't try to..... kill you or anything, would he? After all, you KINDA might have tried to knock him unconscious, and there was a slight possibility he could have taken your actions the wrong way...... and what if he tried anything...... pervy with you?(You'd kick him in the balls, but that man was so freaking lanky, his limbs looked like they were made of noodles, and he was like eight or nine feet tall.....)  God, so much to worry about.....

But you'd have to cross that particular bridge when it came time. After all, you'd need to be smart about this whole thing, because you'd soon be rid of your former friend, once you'd resurrected the man who SURELY knew how to strip her of her power.....

As for the right ingredient? Well, what could it be? Remake the world so the dead could walk once again? What kind of maddeningly unhelpful bullshit was that? Magic was tricky, that much you knew, and there was always a price to be paid to achieve one's dark designs..... But what could it entail? What was possibly strong enough to bring a soul back from the land of the dead and back to the land of the living?

You shifted through the various texts you'd read over the course of the year, tomes on elemental magic, illusion magic, tomes on the names of dark spirits, blood magic.....

Just then, a lightbulb seemingly lit up inside your tortured mind. Of course! Why hadn't you thought of it before?

To end your misery, all it would cost would be a few drops of blood....

Missi's P.O.V

It seems like Y/N has taken the bait dearie, of course I couldn't have put on a more convincing performance myself! It was a performance worthy of  any great stage bound actress.....

.....

Oh come on dearie! You  aren't having second thoughts about this? After all, we've come so far.......

I-I don't know....... I don't think it's right for us to be tricking y/n ....... I really don't feel good about it.....

Now, now, dearie, don't get so angry! I know you feel bad that you hurt poor Y/N, but you're losing the point! She was just a necessary casualty in the grand scheme of what we want!  And besides, it was a long time in coming, that girl's a shifty one. She's probably been plotting against you from the very beginning...... And besides, a powerful sorceress like yourself has no place for silly sentimental feelings about those who don't even deserve a moment of your time......

Yeah! Who needs y/n? She's nothing but a traitorous bitch anyway! I know she's been plotting against me, I've seen her look at me as if I'm crazy, that I'm nothing...... Well, I'm not nothing! I am a villainess! And I will get my revenge on Duke.... Sorry, OUR revenge on Duke.

That's the spirit!

You mean resurrecting Duke and getting our unholy revenge on whoever gets in our way? I do want to see the look on that asshole's face once he's back and has to face down me......

Exactly! Now there's the Missi I trained!

I'm just curious about one thing........

What's that?

Why are you having Y/N preform the resurrection spell? I'm powerful enough to do it and everything... So why couldn't I preform the ritual.....

Oh darling, I can hear the doubt in your voice. It's not that I can't trust you to undertake such a powerful spell, after all, you are powerful enough now to do all that and more..... Blood magic is rather..... draining on a vampire, even more so a younger one like yourself.

Okay, but what about-

Oh don't give anymore thought to her. She's clearly chosen her side in all this. And don't worry, she'll pay for it, along with my former fiancé......

Hello my beasties! Sorry if the chapter isn't as good as the previous ones, I've had a lot of work to do and very little time to do it! Anyway, how's that for a plot twist? Missi and the "Mystery character" are using poor you to get to what they really want. Revenge. But anyway, have you figured it out? The first three of my OC'S were in this chapter! In case you're confused, re-read the chapter so you can pick out where they are even thought you probably won't guess who the third one is even though he appeared briefly in te bginning of is chapter.....

Anyway, I need a well deserved break so I'll be seeing you in the next chapter, in which we return to the land of the dead where our dear overlord of the underworld meets with a person from his past and the identity of the voice Missi is communicating to is revealed!

I'll see you soon beasties!